© Naive Blue · Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
Biography
Yixuan Hu (b. 1998) is a Chinese composer working across chamber opera, orchestral music, film scoring, and dance. Her work searches for a deeper reading of Eastern sound — not only in the choice of instrument and tonality, but in the inner essence of the culture she was raised in — carried into the multicultural context of contemporary music. Alongside her formal training, she draws on painting, literature, and classical philosophy to expand her imagination of what sound can be.
Her collaborators include the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO), the China NCPA Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Suzhou Jinji Lake Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Contemporary Ensemble, the Beijing Contemporary Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Ineo Quartet, and the Junge Sinfonie Reutlingen — with conductors including Xu Zhong, Lin Daye, Bar Avni, Josephine Korda, Konrad S. Heinz, and Adrian Jelinek.
In 2026 she was named a recipient of the China National Arts Fund's Young Artist grant, and gave a solo portrait concert at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg marking ten years of composing. In the same year, her guzheng concerto Early Spring: Blossom received its world premiere by the Junge Sinfonie Reutlingen at the Stadthalle Reutlingen; the dance piece Dunwang Qinyuan, which she co-composed, was selected for the group-dance showcase at the 14th Taoli Cup — the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism's national event for youth dance education.
She studied composition at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (Bachelor and Master), and completed the Konzertexamen — the highest German diploma in composition — at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg under Elmar Lampson. Her earlier teachers include Zhao Liang, Huang Yongcai, Qin Wenchen, Yang Yong, Wu Yuebei, and Tian Tian.