Xingxing Yao

Xingxing Yao is a 19-year-old guitarist from Hangzhou, China. Xingxing started learning the guitar at age three with Li Le and Andres Hsieh. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2020, where she studies with David Starobin and Jason Vieaux, and is the Emilio Gravagno Fellow.

Xingxing has won multiple awards across Asia, including first prize in the Altamira Shanghai International Guitar Competition (youth division), second prize in the Taiwan International Guitar Festival, and second prize in the East End International Guitar Competition in Japan. At age 11, she was invited as the guest performer in world-renowned guitarist Alvaro Pierre’s concert at the Joy of Music Festival in Hong Kong.

During her study in the U.S., she has performed solo and chamber pieces in concerts held by the Philadelphia Guitar Society and the Village Trip Festival in New York City, and she joined and performed as a fellow in the Aspen Music Festival in 2025. Besides traditional guitar repertoire, Xingxing actively performs new music for guitar composed by Tania León, Mel Powell, Paul Lansky, William Bland, Mario Davidovsky, and Stephen Jaffe.

She has also participated in numerous master classes led by internationally renowned guitarists, including William Kanengiser, Aniello Desidero, Zoran Dukic, Marcin Dylla, Petra Poláčková, Franz Halasz, Christian Saggese, and Elena Papandreou.

Xingxing performs on guitars built by Steven Walter and Richard Bruné, and on an Altamira Vienna model 19th-century guitar.