Xu Yi

Born in Nanjing, Xu Yi studied Erhu (Chinese violin) and composition at the Shanghai Conservatory, where she became a professor at the age of 22. She was the youngest of China’s “New Wave” composers of the 1980s.

Xu Yi continued her composition studies in France, following the Cursus de composition et d’informatique musicale at Ircam (1990-1991), then Gérard Grisey’s class at the CNSMD de Paris (first prize in 1994). She was the first Chinese-born composer to reside at Villa Médicis (1996-1998). She became professor of composition at the CRR de Cergy Pontoise (2001-2003). She currently lives in France, but maintains close links with China, where she is a guest professor at the Shanghai (2005-2010) and Wuhan Conservatories. She has also been invited to give master classes at several national conservatories and universities in France, China, Switzerland and the USA.

Xu Yi has been commissioned by the French State, Radio France and numerous festivals and ensembles in France, China, England, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, and his works have been premiered and performed around the world: Festival Présences in Paris; Festival Musiques en Scène in Lyon; Festival 38e Rugissants in Grenoble; Festival Les Detours de Babel in Grenoble; Festival Musica in Strasbourg; Festival Why Not in Dijon; IRCAM Summer Academy at C.G.P.Nuit Blanche in Paris; Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris; Lucerne Festival; Festival Archipel in Geneva; Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin; Festival Musique et Espace in Fribourg; Festival Romaeuropa in Rome; SMC in Milan; Festival Trieste Prima; Festival BBK Musica Actuales, Bilbao; Warsaw Autumn Festival; Stadt Darmstadt Internationales Ferienkurse für Neue Musik; Sound Festival, Aberdeen; International Festival of Contemporary Music, Bratislava; Festival Automne, Moscow; Sound Ways international music, St. Petersburg; Staller Center Recital, St. Petersburg. Petersburg; Staller Center Recital Hall in New York; Burchfield Panney art center in New York; Global Fax Festival- M.E.C. in Los Angeles; Festival Musica Nova in Sao Paulo; Shanghai International Art Festival; Shanghai Spring Festival; Wuhan International Music Festival; Shanghai New Music Week; Festival Taiwan International Percussion Convention; Festival Croisement in Beijing; Beijing Modern Music Festival, etc.

His work Le Plein du Vide was selected by the French Ministry of Education as the BAC test for 2006 and 2007.

In his music and in his life, East and West, tradition and modernity, nature and technology coexist.