ABOUT SUNNY
Recognized for her innate musicality, compelling presence, and technical precision, conductor Sunny Xia’s ability to forge an immediate and captivating connection with orchestras and singers alike has led to engagements around the globe. Xia has served as the Douglas F. King Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony since 2023 and Conducting Fellow of the San Diego Symphony since 2025. In the 2026/2027 season, she joins the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg as First Assistant Conductor and will conduct performances of Rigoletto and The Love for Three Oranges. Her recent and upcoming engagements include the New Jersey Symphony, Seattle Opera, Detroit Symphony, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, and Phoenix Symphony.
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Recent highlights include the world premiere of Seattle Symphony’s 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. A dynamic advocate for contemporary music, Xia has over a dozen world premieres under her credit and has collaborated with composers such as Samuel Adams, Chen Yi, Quinn Mason, Angelique Poteat, Gabriella Smith, and Tan Dun. In July 2026, she makes her Tanglewood Music Center debut conducting Oliver Knussen’s Requiem - Songs for Sue. Xia was a Conducting Fellow at the 2022 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music where she made her festival debut leading the world premiere of Marc Migó Cortés' Dumka. She has previously led the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble in series such as the Cleveland NEOSonicFest and CIM New Music Series.
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Equally at home in the opera pit, Xia debuts with the Seattle Opera in 2025/2026 season as Associate Conductor in productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Strauss’ Daphne. In 2026/2027, she joins the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg as First Assistant Conductor and will conduct performances of Rigoletto and The Love for Three Oranges. She joins the Dallas Opera as part of the Hart Institute of Women Conductor in 2026. Recent engagements include conducting a sold-out production of La bohème with the Chandler Opera Company that received critical acclaim. 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.
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 English, French, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Teochew, and is improving upon her German and Italian.
