Shuang Xu is a Chinese composer, physicist and engineer. His portfolio consists of more than 30 works of a variety of instrumentation including a quintet for Asian instruments. Born in Nanjing, China, Xu took an unusual path in musical education. Beginning with piano playing around the age of fourteen, he delved straight into the analysis of contemporary music and compositional theory before studying music history and composition by himself. While pursuing a degree in physical science in higher education institutions, Xu was an active pianist keen on performing contemporary piano music including his own. Little known as a composer, nonetheless, he has received several private commissions, and his works have been performed in China, USA, Australia, France, and Austria.
A large portion of Xu’s works can be described as nature-inspired, though in a very scientific way. He has realized that many natural processes, viewed at a fundamental level, resemble the patterns of how musical materials are handled by a composer. He explores this relationship by mapping the underlying physical mechanisms to compositional techniques and attempts at creating a kind of music not only logically coherent as nature but also emotionally accessible. While many pieces are musical representations of the physics terms, such as Schrödinger's Violin, Fractals, Silica, Basis Transformation and Phase Transition, Xu has also adopted concepts from other disciplines. For example, Satin is a musical texture knitted by a string quartet and Ballade is a tale of musical characters acting different social classes in a setting of ancient China.
In addition to music, Xu enjoys molecules and mountains. He holds a Ph. D. in chemical physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. He is currently living in San Diego, California.