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Birthdays:

Dying days:

Events:

• Piece for recorder, op.1 (2005)
• Elegy, for strings, in memory of my grandfather, op.2 (2005)
• Rhapsody for flute, op.3 (2006),
• Forward 2006, symphonic suite, dedicated to Beckham W., op.4 (to be continued)
• Nazca Tassili, symphonic poem for orchestra, op.5 (2006)
• For Tracy/Pour Thea, for flute and piano/pour flute et piano, op.6 (2007)
• Une sonatine pour violin et piano, dans la style de Mozart, dédié à Gemini, op.7 (2007)
• Music for a PC Game, commissioned by a programming group, op.8 (2008)
• Adagio for strings, “after a biology exam”, op.9 (2008)
• Symphony No.1, “Quantum Mechanics”, in six movements, dedicated to Nanjing National Laboratory of Microstructures and Symphony Orchestra of Nanjing University, op.10 (unfinished and on the way)
• Moto perpetuo per violin, op.11 (2009)
• Sonata in one movement, for piano, op.12 (2009)
• Canon in D, in memory of Pachelbel, op.13 (2009)
• Drei Klavierstücke, op.15 (2009)
• Image of Ancient China, for violin, op.16 (2009)
• The Fairyland, for piano, op.17 (2009)

Xavier Shuang Xu is a student of Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China, majoring physics. He has been playing the piano and composing since he was in the high school — Nanjing Foreign Language School.

Although he has not attended any courses in a conservatoire and is not a professional composer at all, he has a great zealot in classical music and a special insight into composing. He has collected CDs and listened to all styles of classical music, dating from the ancient Hildegard von Bingen to the very modern ones, including Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Helmut Lachenmann, Matthias Pintscher, etc., who are extremely appealing to him, and so are all the contemporary master composers and works.

Certainly, he has just acquired limited skills of composing printed on textbooks, however, this situation does not limit his ability of composing. Skills are not only available on textbooks. It is more correct to say, he composes largely on imagination and intuition, which have been nurtured through his years of listening to a wide and comprehensive range of classical music. Composing is an enjoyable hobby to him, and should be not imposed too much academic rules and disciplines on, in his words, though methods and skills could not be ignored.

There are parts in his works are in accordance with the rules or laws in structure and harmony of professional composing, but he regards it as just coincides resulting from some intrinsic beliefs, attained from barely listening. Sometimes he did consult some professional composers for advice, usually for the purpose of making trivial revisions after finishing, rather than during the progress of writing music.

He does not deny his short of so-called skills, but he believes that there should be something indicative and inspiring and worthful in his works, though his works might be regarded as simply desserts for entertainment by the professionals. However, he does not care: “I’d like them to laugh or even sneer at my works… I don’t mind, coz I just write down what I like and suppose to write; I want to emote and explore myself. I’m serious and this is the only point that I wish others to believe. It doesn’t matter how they consider my works from academic aspects.”

As with his first symphony titled “Quantum Mechanics”, sometimes he likes to add ideas from physics to music, which endows his music with a unique characteristic. To some degree this case is similar to that of Pierre Boulez, Edgar Varèse and Iannis Xenakis, who took up science in their early ages, though Xavier does not intend to be a real composer. But this sort of efforts is undoubtly remarkable to the development of contemporary music, since it seeks an eternal unity of art and science and a substantial relationship between sound and its physical mechanism, the existence of which has not been proved but maintains strong attraction to all great minds of artists, philosophers and scientists.

Speaking of the performance of his works, he makes a helpless expression. “Unlike those professional composers, I am not surrounded by musicians or ensembles. I can only play the piano myself. The other parts are hardly available. There are amateur instrument performers, but few supportive, and fewer qualified.” “One of my dreams is to find someone really insterested in me and giving me a hand to carry out those works, and I’ll be sincerely appreciated.”

The most essential and valuable attitudes toward music and composing should be enthusiasm, solemnity, honesty, sinceriy, reverence and discretion, and it is these factors that enable him to be listed here.

• Contact e-mail address: <xaviersx.phygmail.com>
• http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Xu,_Xavier_Shuang [downloadable scores]