GLORIA XIA

Gloria (Xinyue) Xia is a Manchester-based composer, originally from Shanghai, China. Her creative practice is rooted in humanity, relationships, and feminism—especially the intimacy, contradictions, and tensions unfold between people. She creates music that embraces vulnerability and honesty, allowing space for discomfort and bizarreness. Influenced by the New Discipline and cross-disciplinary, intercultural installations, her work merges music with text, movement, and visual storytelling—often through embodied, performative gestures and language.

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Her compositions have been showcased internationally, with performances in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and China. She has collaborated with prominent ensembles including Enseble Modern, Hypercube, London Contemporary Soloists, Trio Immersio, and musicians from The Juilliard School and the Royal Northern College of Music. Her piece Unvoiced was selected for the Vocalverse Call for Scores 2025, receiving its premiere in April 2025 in San Francisco, and was later selected to be featured at Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble’s 4th Annual New Music Festival in October 2025. She is currently writing a new work for United Instruments of Lucilin as part of the Luxembourg Composer Academy, to be presented at the Rainy Day Festival. In summer 2025, she attended the IYCA Composer & Conductor Academy in Ticino and had her piece Before the Question premiered.

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Xia is also passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration. She has worked closely with choreographers from the Northern Ballet School and animation artists from Manchester Metropolitan University. Currently, she is pursuing a composition degree at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), studying under Larry Goves and Steven Daverson.

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Beyond composition, Xia is deeply passionate about the intersection of music, health, and well-being. She has contributed to several initiatives, including Jessie’s Fund and Songbirds Music UK, and currently serves as a Young Creator Project Support at Songbirds. Additionally, she has launched a series of music workshops for autistic children at Star Project in Suzhou, China—an organization dedicated to supporting children with autism.