Xiao Shuxian

Xiao Shuxian (Simplified Chinese: 萧淑娴; Traditional Chinese: 蕭淑嫻; Pinyin: Xiāo Shúxián; sometimes spelled Hsiao Shu-sien) (April 4, 1905 – November 26, 1991) was a Chinese composer and music educator. Life Xiao was born in Tianjin into a highly cultural Chinese family, some of her relatives were known people in Chinese history. After a period of music studying in China, she went to the Royal Conservatory at Brussels, winning a prize there in 1932. From 1935 to 1954 she was married to Hermann Scherchen, a conductor; their daughter, Tona Scherchen, became a composer. Xiao spent 14 years working in Switzerland, where she helped to promote Chinese culture with her music and writing. Her 1938 Chinese Children’s Suite for voice and piano was among the first works by a Chinese composer to become known in the West, as was her suite for orchestra, Huainian Zuguo (A Commemoration of My Homeland). In 1950, motivated by a desire to help her homeland’s development, and a wish to have a career of her own, Xiao returned to China with her three children, not knowing that she herself would not be able to see her husband ever again. From then until her death she taught in Beijing at the Central Conse