Xuan is a new media artist, filmmaker, and pianist working at the intersection of music, visual art, and technology. A trained classical pianist with a passion for visual music, she actively develops innovative, cross-disciplinary projects that broaden the scope of music and performance. Driven by themes such as femininity, power, alienation and multicultural identity, her work encompasses abstract scenography, experimental animation, music videos, narrative documentaries, interactive installations, and large scale projection mapping.
She has collaborated with Glenn Kotche, Pierre Jodlowski, Nina Shekhar, Annika Socolofsky, Ben Wendel, Alexi Kenney, Bec Plexus, Eunbi Kim, and GRAMMY® Award-winning ensembles Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, and Akropolis Reed Quintet among others — which have led to performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Smithsonian Museum of Art, Constellation, SFJAZZ, Le Poisson Rouge, Zürich Design Biennale 2019, Ad Astra Music Festival 2020, Sound Forms Hong Kong 2021, the Mizzou International Composers Festival 2021, CAP UCLA’s Tune In Festival 2021, the MATA Festival x Found Sound Nation 2023.
In recent seasons, her close partnership with composers and performers have produced feature-length multimedia concerts including High Heart in 2023 with GRAMMY-nominated jazz saxophonist Ben Wendel which premiered at the Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, it feels like a dream in 2022 with pianist Eunbi Kim at the Baryshnikov Art Center (BAC) in New York, Ex Machina in 2023-25 with pianist Clara Yang at the Process Series at UNC Chapel Hill, and Shifting Ground in 2024 with violinist Alexi Kenney at BAC and the 2024 The Ojai Music Festival.
Of the belief that art is for everyone, Xuan’s evolving practice explores collective experiences through art in public spaces. In 2021, she was invited by Art on the MART to create projections in collaboration with Eighth Blackbird and composer Michael Gordon for the 2.5-acre façade of the Merchandise Mart, the largest permanent digital installation in the world. Each night from July to September, The Light of the Dark lit up the riverwalk to the delight of thousands of locals and tourists alike, including those passing by on kayaks, bikes or catching a glimpse from the “L” train.
A passionate educator, she has held workshops at The New School and given lectures at Carnegie Mellon University, CU Boulder, USC, Rochester Institute of Technology, ASU, ESM, and OSU.
Xuan is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Dr. Nelita True, and has studied Media Spaces at the BTK University of Art and Design in Berlin, DE. She is honored to be a fellow of OneBeat 9 and the Blackbird Creative Lab 2018.