Xenia D Hanusiak

XENIA HANUSIAK www.xeniahanusiak.com
“There is someone who has come before me, and always someone who will come after me.”
Described as the ‘High Priestess of Harmony,’ whose creative writing has ‘enjoyed exceptional public approbation,’ Xenia Hanusiak enjoys one of the most diverse lives experienced by artists today. As a curator of ideas, words, festivals, and music, she contributes to the stage, the page and the intervals in between. She is a musical omnivore.
Xenia is committed to the exchange of ideas and international relations through arts and culture. She believes that cultural narratives promote not simply a greater understanding of the arts but an important cognition of a nation’s values, ways of thinking and the shared life experience. Xenia creates dynamic programs that transcend geographical borders to connect North America, Asia, Europe and Australia for governments, festivals, cultural societies, concert halls, museums, and artists. Most recently she has been most excited about her roles as a Global Cultural Fellow, Institute of International Cultural Relations,at the University of Edinburghand as anArtist Incubator at Cultural Summit, Abu Dhabi.
She directs international festivals and curates art projects. In 2018 Songlines for a New World made its world tour debut at Spring Revolution Festival at National Sawdust (New York). Previous projects include: A thousand doors, a thousand windows (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Venice, Boston, Florence, Singapore, Beijing), MADE IN CHINA (Beijing Music Festival), Earth Songs (Korea, Sydney, Melbourne), and The Garden of Joy and Sorrow (Melbourne International Arts Festival). Her current international project is In the Shadow of the Kreutzer for the Beethoven 2020 celebrations.
Her body of work as a writer for the stage includes the play "Ward B" (R.E Ross Trust Award), the children’s chorus "Un_labelled" (co-written with Elena Kats-Chernin/Boosey & Hawkes/Young People’s Chorus of New York City), the libretto "A thousand doors, a thousand windows" (Melbourne International Arts Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Venice Biennale), the music-theatre work "Earth Songs" (Homart Theatre Korea/Sydney/Melbourne Recital Center) and the dramatic vocal monologue ''The MsTaken Identity'' (Adelaide Festival of Arts/Australian String Quartet).
As an operatic soprano, Xenia has given world premiere performances on four continents. Her appearances include the Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Ten Days on the Island festivals (Australia), Aarhus Festival (Denmark), Banff Festival of Arts (Canada), Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music Festival (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington), Singapore Arts Festival, Gruppo Aperto Musica Oggi (Florence), Beijing Musica Acoustica, Beijing Music Festival (China) MODAFE Festival (Seoul), The Concert Hall, Esplanade Theatre on The Bay, (Singapore) and the Ljubljana Spring Festival. She has given the country or world premieres of some of the most influential composers of our time including Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Harbison, Elena Kats- Chernin, Chinese Electronic composer Zhang Xiaofu, and Korean composer Cecilia Heejong Kim.
Xenia holds a PhD in Literature/Creative Writing, a Masters in classical music performance, a Bachelor of Arts degree (theatre and literature), and a Bachelor or Music. She is also an Alumnus of the Banff School of Fine Arts (Canada), and Corsi Di Perfezionamento Sulla Musica Del Novecento (Italy).

As a culture critic, Xenia is published by the London Financial Times, The Log Journal (National Sawdust), Music and Literature, Musical America, Classical Voice North America (USA), South China Post, Arts and International Affairs, Choir and Organ (UK), New Music Box, The Australian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, as well as literary and scholarly journals. She writes on music, contemporary installation, literature and ideas.
She has been a Visiting Scholar at the School of Writing, Columbia University (New York), a Writer/Scholar/Artist in residence at Peking University (Beijing), Kookmin University (Korea), a Bundanon Estate Arts resident (Australia) and a Hambidge (USA) fellow recipient. She is a Churchill Fellow, a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellow, and the inaugural arts recipient of a Boston-Melbourne Fellowship. Her honors and recognitions include the R. E Ross Trust award for playwriting and she remains the only recipient ever awarded multiple citations from three different categories of the Australia Council (Literature, Music and Theatre). Xenia has held an Australia-China Council Fellowship, two Australian-Korea Foundation awards, an Asialink award, an Ian Potter Award, and a Professional Writer’s award from Copyright Australia (CAL).
Xenia is a committed educator and performance teacher who has contributed to arts programs for the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, Northeastern (Boston), Peking (China), Central Conservatorium (Beijing), Kookmin University (Korea) and La Salle Sia (Singapore).
A frequent provocateur and interlocutor, Xenia’s addresses to diverse audiences on cultural engagement, literature, music, and museum practice has offered her opportunities at International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy (United Nations, New York), Boston University, Northeastern University (Boston), Museums Victoria, Non-FictionNow (Melbourne and Reykjavik), Peking University (China), Sang Myung and Kookmin Universities (Korea), the National University of Singapore (Singapore), the Shanghai Institute of Theatre (Shanghai), Monash University, Melbourne University, and Adelaide Universities (Australia), the International Forum for Words and Music at Arizona State University, and Performers (') and the Present Symposium at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore) and La Salle Sia.