ABOUT SUNNY
Recognized for her innate musicality, compelling presence, and technical precision, conductor Sunny Xuecong Xia’s ability to forge an immediate and captivating connection with orchestras and singers alike has led to engagements around the globe. Xia joined the Seattle Symphony at the beginning of the 2022/2023 season as Douglas F. King Assistant Conductor and was quickly promoted to Associate Conductor. Recent and upcoming engagements include the San Diego Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony, Olympia Symphony, and Chandler Opera Theater.
In the 2023/2024 season, Xia led the Seattle Symphony in over a dozen programs featuring soloists such as Conrad Tao, Noah Geller, and Mahani Teave. Highlights include the world premiere of Composer-in-Residence, Angelique Poteat’s Dear Humanity for Youth Chorus and Orchestra, a work that harnesses the power of 50 voices and full orchestra to confront climate change, the Celebrate Asia program with violinist Kerson Leong, and the Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop Concert that featured 10 world premieres. She served as Tan Dun’s assistant during the composer’s acclaimed residency presenting his six-Act oratorio, Buddha Passion. Xia has additionally served as Cover Conductor at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Dame Jane Glover and James Gaffigan.
Equally at home in the opera pit, Xia recently led a production of La bohème with the Chandler Opera Company to great success. She has previously served as assistant conductor for productions of Così fan tutte, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Zauberflöte, The Juniper Tree, Le Rossignol, and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, among others. A dynamic interpreter of contemporary music, Xia has over a dozen world premieres under her credit. In 2022, Xia was named a Conducting Fellow at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music where she made her festival debut leading the world premiere of Marc Migó Cortés' Dumka. Recent performances have featured works by Gabriella Smith, Angelique Poteat, Samuel Adams, Jerod Tate, Juhi Bansal, Gabriela Ortiz, and Tan Dun. She has previously led the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble in series such as the Cleveland NEOSonicFest and CIM New Music Series.
Xia holds a dual master’s degree in Conducting and Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctoral degree from Arizona State University. At the Seattle Symphony, she is mentored by Ludovic Morlot and Xian Zhang. For three summers, she attended the Monteux School and Music Festival as a Kurt & Torj Wray Conducting Scholar. An accomplished violinist, she performed as a soloist with orchestras in China and Australia, including the symphony orchestras of Harbin, Zheijiang, Hunan and Guangxi, and the Concertante Ensemble. While attending Cleveland Institute of music, she has served as concertmaster of the CIM Orchestra. Her principal mentors include Michael Jinbo, Jeffery Meyer, Tito Muñoz, Jan Mark Sloman, and Carl Topilow.
Originally from Guangzhou, China, Xia relocated to Sydney, Australia at the age of 14 on a scholarship from the Australian String Academy that allowed her to further her violin studies with Peter Shi-xiang Zhang and Charmian Gadd. A talented basketball athlete, she competed in the New South Wales Metro Junior League before focusing primarily on her musical pursuits. When not performing or enjoying a pick-up game, she can be found reading, hiking, or learning languages. She speaks Cantonese, English, Mandarin, and Teochew, and is improving upon her French, German, and Italian.
