Xiaotian Liu | Artist Bio

Xiaotian grew up in Xi’an, China, and came to the United States in 2009. Her musical training began at the age of four on classical piano and age thirteen on guitar. During college at the University of Kansas, Xiaotian received comprehensive training in music and music therapy, participated in vocal and instrumental ensembles,. In addition to solo performances on piano, voice, guitar, and music composition.

With a Bachelor degree in music therapy, Xiaotian entered the field of healthcare. She worked as a music therapist with various populations. Eventually, she committed to hospice and palliative care where impending death casts a sense of urgency on the quality of life. During work, she often collaborates with dying patients and their families to sing, play instruments, or write songs together as a way for healing, bonding, expression, response, or sometimes spiritual quest. Parallel to this experience, her musical composition increased and expanded.

Witnessing death daily has influenced Xiaotian heavily in her view of the world, which include value, people, the self, and music. To her, music was the only way she could connect deeply and directly with the patients in a non-intrusive, natural, and reciprocal manner. In music, the physical, social, or worldly confinements of her and her patients dissolve, and the feeling of oneness rises, as they energetically synchronize to the same beat, rhythm, harmony, or musical groove.

Following the hospice work, in 2015, Xiaotian held a concert that wove together the music and stories from her interactions with the dying, at 江 湖 (JIANG HU, music club) in Beijing, China. The intimate solo show was well received, and Xiaotian was asked to perform more. Since then she has held the show in various venues, include 凹 club (AO, jazz club), 舒琴兮

(SHU QIN XI, traditional Chinese aesthetics institute), 知音堂 (Sharmonic Hall), and 辛庄艺术村 (XIN ZHUANG art village). She has been interviewed by 人物 (People) and 嘉人(marie claire China) in addition to attention from many online media agencies such as 东西(Dong-Xi).

Longing for more artistic autonomy and more embodied understanding of the "art" part in art therapy, Xiao went on to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Inquiry at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her current music project is about Chinese people living in the U.S., with whom she interviews using “” inspired by free word association borrowed from psychotherapy. She then collaborates with them in song-writing, exploring deeper into the personal, cultural, social aspects of the writings from word.

The process is affirming her cultural identity as she integrates her lenses as musician, as artist, as therapist. Through the project, she realized that the cultural nuances are not as pronounced as we perceived it to be. Thus, it is the energy between her and her interviewee that illuminates that there is no separation.