Xiao holds master and doctoral (Dr.sc.mus.) degrees from the HfMT Hamburg, Germany and is the co-founder of the Cooltur Connect e.V., which brings together a new generation of artists from electronic, contemporary, Jazz, improv and folk music fields around the world.
 
Under the label "fresh::sounds", Xiao organizes concerts in the Hamburg metropolitan region, for example the concert series "Music of the Silk Road / Musik der Seidenstrasse", the two-year exchange project "W-burg" or "Music in the Global Village".
 
In the field of acoustic and electronic music she is especially engaged in gesture control of instruments and interactive performance. Her compositions (solo and chamber music with live electronics) have been performed at various music festivals in Germany and abroad, such as the Hamburg Klangwerktage; the next_generation Festival (zkm, Karlsruhe) as well as EMW 2013 in Shanghai, ICMC 2014 in Athens and NYCEMF 2016 and 2017 at National Sawdust in New York, TENOR 2022 in Marseille.
 
She collaborates with renowned ensembles and soloists including Decibel Ensemble (Australia), Duo Soie (Germany), Ensemble Decoder (Germany), unheard-of Ensemble (USA) and has been involved in numerous projects such as the spatial sound installation 1000_strings at Kampnagel Hamburg, hero_s at HCU and mit 144 Musicians at Old Elbe Tunnel