Mimi Xu has built a distinctive career, establishing herself as a composer, producer, performer, musical director, and acclaimed DJ. Her work spans feature films, performance art series, installation pieces, and catwalks—testament to her eclectic and unconventional musical background.
Born into a world of classical and experimental music, Xu was profoundly influenced by her father, the renowned French-Chinese acoustic architect Albert Yaying Xu. Her passion for the transformative power of sound took root at an early age through her piano studies. She later pursued architecture and journalism before transitioning into the music industry, working with various record labels. This period shaped her DJ career and led to the creation of Mimi Xu Studio — a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to original music composition for film, fashion, and live performance. Through the studio, Xu has created soundtracks for major fashion houses, featuring guest appearances from Lana Del Rey, Kylie Minogue, and Rose Byrne, among others — underscoring her ability to bridge cinematic narrative, sound design, and contemporary culture. As a DJ, she has performed for selected fashion and cultural institutions, including Prada, Miu Miu, Marni, Hermès, Zimmermann and Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine as well as at major events such as Art Basel, Cannes Film Festival, Serpentine Gallery Summer Party, Frieze, Panorama Bar at Berghain, and Houghton Festival.
In addition to these extensive credits Xu continues to push boundaries, creating site-specific mixed media performances at cultural destinations including Meltdown Festival, The Royal Academy of Arts, The Barbican, Gagosian Gallery, Oberlin Conservatory, and collaborated with visual artist Carlota Guerrero and the legendary choreographer Lindsay Kemp—Marcel Marceau’s protégé, known for staging *Ziggy Stardust* and mentoring David Bowie and Kate Bush—before Kemp's passing. Xu participated in REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion exhibition at the Design Museum and scored the 'Show' installation. She recently recorded a modern classical radio show on NTS and world premiered her debut symphonic composition, Sānshuǐ - Three Waters in memory of her father at Weiwuying- National Kaohsiung Center for the Art in Taiwan last December. Early 2025, Xu was nominated for Best Original Score at the Sundance Film Festival for the feature film LUZ, directed by Flora Lau, and was selected for the ASCAP Composer Spotlight of the Year.
Subsequently building on her lifelong investigation into the relationship between sound and space—a lineage shaped by her architectural acoustician father, Mimi developed RESONANCE as an ongoing research-performance. The work examines the neurological and physiological effects of low frequencies through modular synthesis, feedback loops, and spatialised electronic pulses. Site-responsive rather than fixed, each presentation evolves in dialogue with its architecture, where reflections and reverberations act as co-resonators. RESONANCE premiered at Houghton Festival (UK) and was presented at the Fondation Beyeler in September.
In parallel with her solo practice, Xu formed Awkward Moments in 2017 with multi instrumentalist and lead vocalist MAGUIRE. The pair layer interweaving electronic beats over organic instruments and atmospheric vocals to mirror the relationship between the tangible and the ethereal; between fragmentation and order. This concept is further explored visually using multimedia projection of abstract moving imagery. In the words of Virginia Woolf - 'I see myself as a fish in a stream; deflected; held in place; but cannot describe the stream.' This is their attempt to recreate that stream of existence through sound experiments and psychedelic visual journeys. Their debut 6 track LP 'An Entropic Cycle' released in March 2020 explores the theory of Eternal Recurrence, probing questions about the cyclical nature of existence, never aiming to repeat, but always returning to the primary concerns of fluidity and transience. They followed this with ’An Entropic Remix EP’ and a track on the k7 compilation album ‘Ambient Layers’. In addition Awkward Moments also host a radio show 'An Entropic Hour' on OpenLab Radio. The duo just released EP1 of an ongoing remix art project entitled ‘Life on Venus – Remixed & Reimagined’ and released their ambient neo-classical album SIX SEASONS in July 2023. They collaborated with visual artist Weirdcore for one of their multimedia performances, premiered at Houghton Festival last year. They have recently scored the trailer music for Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film Megalopolis using the solfeggio frequency 852 Hz that promotes spiritual healing and just released their new album A Strange Odyssey. To mark the album release, they curated Life on Venus —an Expanded Cinema performance event at the ICA on Thursday 11 September 2025. The evening showcased six immersive live works by queer artists Zoë Marden, Eloise Fornieles & Howl Vocal Ensemble, and Grace Pickering & Sarah Nimmo. Each responding to the central question of how fluid identity and queerness manifest in creative expression; the event also featured the premiere of their music video, directed by Norbert Schoerner.
Born into a world of classical and experimental music, Xu was profoundly influenced by her father, the renowned French-Chinese acoustic architect Albert Yaying Xu. Her passion for the transformative power of sound took root at an early age through her piano studies. She later pursued architecture and journalism before transitioning into the music industry, working with various record labels. This period shaped her DJ career and led to the creation of Mimi Xu Studio — a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to original music composition for film, fashion, and live performance. Through the studio, Xu has created soundtracks for major fashion houses, featuring guest appearances from Lana Del Rey, Kylie Minogue, and Rose Byrne, among others — underscoring her ability to bridge cinematic narrative, sound design, and contemporary culture. As a DJ, she has performed for selected fashion and cultural institutions, including Prada, Miu Miu, Marni, Hermès, Zimmermann and Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine as well as at major events such as Art Basel, Cannes Film Festival, Serpentine Gallery Summer Party, Frieze, Panorama Bar at Berghain, and Houghton Festival.
In addition to these extensive credits Xu continues to push boundaries, creating site-specific mixed media performances at cultural destinations including Meltdown Festival, The Royal Academy of Arts, The Barbican, Gagosian Gallery, Oberlin Conservatory, and collaborated with visual artist Carlota Guerrero and the legendary choreographer Lindsay Kemp—Marcel Marceau’s protégé, known for staging *Ziggy Stardust* and mentoring David Bowie and Kate Bush—before Kemp's passing. Xu participated in REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion exhibition at the Design Museum and scored the 'Show' installation. She recently recorded a modern classical radio show on NTS and world premiered her debut symphonic composition, Sānshuǐ - Three Waters in memory of her father at Weiwuying- National Kaohsiung Center for the Art in Taiwan last December. Early 2025, Xu was nominated for Best Original Score at the Sundance Film Festival for the feature film LUZ, directed by Flora Lau, and was selected for the ASCAP Composer Spotlight of the Year.
Subsequently building on her lifelong investigation into the relationship between sound and space—a lineage shaped by her architectural acoustician father, Mimi developed RESONANCE as an ongoing research-performance. The work examines the neurological and physiological effects of low frequencies through modular synthesis, feedback loops, and spatialised electronic pulses. Site-responsive rather than fixed, each presentation evolves in dialogue with its architecture, where reflections and reverberations act as co-resonators. RESONANCE premiered at Houghton Festival (UK) and was presented at the Fondation Beyeler in September.
In parallel with her solo practice, Xu formed Awkward Moments in 2017 with multi instrumentalist and lead vocalist MAGUIRE. The pair layer interweaving electronic beats over organic instruments and atmospheric vocals to mirror the relationship between the tangible and the ethereal; between fragmentation and order. This concept is further explored visually using multimedia projection of abstract moving imagery. In the words of Virginia Woolf - 'I see myself as a fish in a stream; deflected; held in place; but cannot describe the stream.' This is their attempt to recreate that stream of existence through sound experiments and psychedelic visual journeys. Their debut 6 track LP 'An Entropic Cycle' released in March 2020 explores the theory of Eternal Recurrence, probing questions about the cyclical nature of existence, never aiming to repeat, but always returning to the primary concerns of fluidity and transience. They followed this with ’An Entropic Remix EP’ and a track on the k7 compilation album ‘Ambient Layers’. In addition Awkward Moments also host a radio show 'An Entropic Hour' on OpenLab Radio. The duo just released EP1 of an ongoing remix art project entitled ‘Life on Venus – Remixed & Reimagined’ and released their ambient neo-classical album SIX SEASONS in July 2023. They collaborated with visual artist Weirdcore for one of their multimedia performances, premiered at Houghton Festival last year. They have recently scored the trailer music for Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film Megalopolis using the solfeggio frequency 852 Hz that promotes spiritual healing and just released their new album A Strange Odyssey. To mark the album release, they curated Life on Venus —an Expanded Cinema performance event at the ICA on Thursday 11 September 2025. The evening showcased six immersive live works by queer artists Zoë Marden, Eloise Fornieles & Howl Vocal Ensemble, and Grace Pickering & Sarah Nimmo. Each responding to the central question of how fluid identity and queerness manifest in creative expression; the event also featured the premiere of their music video, directed by Norbert Schoerner.