Concert pianist, film composer and painter Mila Xiaoxi Wu has been captivating audiences internationally since her appearance at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2005, where her performance was described as “intimate and delicately confessional, rich in nuance, marked by a rare sensitivity to sound and tone” (Jan Popis, Polish Press). Wu is the laureate of numerous international competitions, including the Grand Prix of the 21st Century Art Festival in Ukraine. She was also among the top prize winners at the José Roca International Competition in Valencia, the Mozart International Competition in Salzburg, and the Jean Françaix International Competition in Paris.
Wu has appeared in major concert venues including the Grand Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Rachmaninoff Hall, the Großer Saal of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, Salle Cortot in Paris, the Palacio de la Música in Valencia, and the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, among others. Her performances have consistently been praised for their emotional depth, refined tonal palette and poetic imagination. The Cherpovets Press wrote of the “unexpected colours and delicate warmth” of her playing, “powered by an energy that captivated the audience from start to finish.”
As a concerto soloist, Wu has performed with the Camerata Salzburg under Dennis Russell Davies, the Mediterranean Symphony Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kislovodsk Philharmonic Orchestra. A devoted chamber musician, she has collaborated with distinguished artists including Victor Rosenbaum, François Daudet and violinist Igor Pikayzen.
Alongside her concert career, Wu has developed an increasingly active career as a film composer. Since 2017, she has written music for feature films, television productions and short films, while also working in music production and sound engineering for audiovisual projects. Combining her classical training with contemporary orchestral writing and cinematic storytelling, her scores are distinguished by their lyrical character, expressive piano writing and rich orchestral colours, drawing on both the European classical tradition and modern film music.
Her scoring credits include Tout le monde debout (Gaumont, 2018), Le Meilleur d’entre nous, Meurtre en Berry (2021), and La Disparue de Compostelle (2025), among other productions. Her score for the short film Les Garants accompanied the film’s presentation at the Festival de Cannes in 2025.
Visual art forms a natural extension of Wu’s artistic world. Alongside her work as a pianist and film composer, she has long cultivated a passion for photography and videography. A self-taught painter working primarily in oil and watercolour, she has developed a body of work exploring portraiture and figurative subjects. Her paintings were exhibited at the Mainvilliers Town Hall in France in 2024.
Born in Beijing, Wu began studying piano at the age of three and gave her first public performance at the age of five. At fifteen, she moved to Moscow to study with Irina Turusova before continuing her studies with Alexey Skavronsky at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. She later pursued advanced studies with Boris Berman and Claude Frank at Yale University, and with Ramzi Yassa at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. She has also participated in masterclasses with Fou Ts’ong, Aquiles Delle Vigne, Alexander Kobrin and Victor Rosenbaum.
The Russian journal Culture aptly summarized the essence of her artistry as “a captivating blend of natural charm and mature mastery.”
Mila Xiaoxi Wu 