Past projects include commissioning and performing in Arlene Sierra’s “Urban Birds” at the Southbank Centre (with Kathleen Supove and Sarah Nicolls, recorded for BBC Radio 3 and available on NMC Records), burning a piano with Annea Lockwood in Wales, instigating and performing in the World Toy Piano Summit at Festival Rainy Days in Luxembourg (with Margaret Leng Tan and others), designing cutting-edge digital musical instruments at McGill University and collaborating on a new digital version of the analogue electronic processing required for Karlheinz Stockhausen’s epic masterwork “Mantra”. Xenia is a Schoenhut toy piano concert artist and has championed many new works for this instrument.

Following childhood music education in Western Siberia, Xenia’s studies took place with Judith Clark (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), Philip Mead and Ian Pace (London), Hakon Austbo (Amsterdam), Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen (Avignon and Paris), Louise Bessette (Montreal) and Sara Laimon at McGill University, where she was awarded a Doctor of Music degree in 2009. She received the unanimous First Prize at the Xavier Montsalvatge International Piano Competition in Girona, Spain and prizes at the Messiaen International Piano Competition in Paris and the KeriKeri National Piano Competition of New Zealand. From 2011-2015 Xenia was the Head of Performance at Bangor University, where she founded and directed the highly successful INTER/actions Festival and Symposium for interactive electronic music. She is currently Associate Professor in Music at the University of Nottingham.

In addition to her career as an interpreter, Xenia is active as an improviser, composer and educator. She is a fully certified and insured yoga teacher and breathwork coach, completing a 200-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training qualification led by Eleonora Ramsby-Herrera in 2019, Yin/Yang Yoga and Mindfulness (primary and secondary levels amounting to 100 hours certified by Yoga Alliance) with Sarah Powers in 2018 and Oxygen Advantage® functional breathing instructor training with Patrick McKeown in 2021. She also provides coaching to individuals and organisations on anxiety management using movement, breathwork and focus interventions. Xenia's new book "Befriending Performance Anxiety: Practical Tips for Performers of All Levels" is now available to purchase through Brompton Cove Press.

For more information on Xenia's wellness work please visit the Wellbeing tab.