At age 16, Chandra Xu made her Carnegie Hall debut after winning honorable mention in the American Protégé International Piano Competition. She has performed solo piano throughout Colorado, Iowa, Florida, and New York, most recently at the Apollo Theater. Her festival engagements include the European American Musical Alliance (Paris), Josef Gingold Chamber Music Festival (Miami), Puerto Piano (Puerto Rico), Dino Ciani Festival (Italy), and Chandra has been featured in masterclasses with Olga Kern, Alexander Kobrin, Peter Takács, Angela Cheng, Jeffrey Cohen, Victor Rosenbaum, Wendy Chen, and Vicki Chow.

An avid chamber musician, Chandra won first prize in the chamber category of the Swiss International Music Competition and has performed with Gary Levinson (Dallas Symphony Orchestra Associate Concertmaster), Yuriy Bekker (Charleston Symphony Concertmaster & Artistic Director), Rafael Figueroa (Metropolitan Opera Principal Cellist), Emile Naoumoff (pupil of Nadia Boulanger), and Agata Miklavc (Charleston Symphony Orchestra). She has also appeared as a pianist with Colorado’s Front Range Youth Symphony, in which she was also principal second violinist; highlights of her violin career include performing in the Colorado All-State Orchestra and at the Wolfsonian-FIU.

Chandra frequently collaborates with composers to record and perform their compositions across the U.S. With the NYU O1 Orchestra, Chandra participated in the premieres of student film scores. Her own compositions have been recorded by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Drawing inspiration from people, places, art, and literature in her compositions, Chandra combines orchestral and textural landscapes using strong melodies, acoustic sounds, and extended techniques. She has worked with many directors and written music for a range of animations, short films, a video game, and a Spotify podcast trailer for which she also designed the script and recorded the audio. 

Chandra holds a M.M. from New York University in Music Theory and Composition: Screen Scoring, studying composition with Jamie Lawrence, Alba Torremocha, and Ezequiel Viñao. She holds a B.M. from NYU in Piano Performance and Journalism, studying piano with Jeffrey Swann. Previous teachers include Ella Stang (pupil of Zoltán Kodály) and Andrew Cooperstock.