Tianguang Xu

Tianguang (Peter) Xu is a vocalist, arts researcher, and arts administrator originally from China. Before he came to the United States, he worked as an assistant opera coordinator at China National Centre for the Performing Arts and an on-site stage manager at Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts. His Arts Administration degrees as well as his working experiences in producing propaganda repertories made him think about the relationship between arts and public, besides that, he also became interested in art and cultural policy making as well as broader public policy questions that involve politics and theater performance in general. As a homosexual man, he has experienced rewards, challenges, and conflicts associated with being a sexual minority, as an arts policy researcher, he is particularly interested in analyzing art and cultural policy making and formulation of ideas to connect with the public, especially those who are marginalized. As a person from a country of which the political correctness is narrow, he deeply believes that “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth… In free society, art is not a weapon, and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology… the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.”