Yu Xu is a Chinese composer and organist whose work explores the materiality of sound and its relationships with physical gesture, space, and time. Treating sound as a dynamic entity capable of generating its own musical logic and narrative, she investigates timbre, corporeality, and the interactions between performers, instruments, and technology. Her compositions span solo and chamber music, opera, instrumental theatre, and electroacoustic works, often incorporating movement, interactive technologies, and visual media.

Her music has been performed in the United States, China, Canada, Italy, Russia, and Spain, and presented at festivals including Mixtur Festival in Barcelona, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the St. Petersburg International New Music Festival, and ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week. Performances of her works have featured ensembles such as Trio Abstrakt, Suono Giallo, and the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble. She has also collaborated with dancers, choreographers, and sculptors on interdisciplinary projects, including work presented at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. She has participated in composition workshops and academies at IRCAM, Stanford CCRMA, and impuls Academy in Graz, Austria.

An award-winning organist, Xu received First Prize at the 2017 Asia-Pacific International Organ Competition. She is the founder of OVO New Music, an initiative dedicated to expanding contemporary repertoire for the pipe organ and other instrumental combinations. Through its inaugural concert, she premiered six works for organ and piano by contemporary composers. Her experience as an organist has influenced her compositional approach, particularly her sensitivity to the interaction between sound and architectural space.

Xu holds a Professional Studies Certificate in Classical Composition from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Reiko Füting, Susan Botti, David Adamcyk, and Ashkan Behzadi, and a Master of Music in Classical Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with David Garner and David Conte. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Organ Performance and a Bachelor of Laws from Xiamen University. She has received individual composition lessons from Mark Andre, Carola Bauckholt, Pierluigi Billone, Sivan Cohen Elias, Beat Furrer, Pierre Jodlowski, Mauro Lanza, Simon Steen-Andersen, and Johannes Walter.