Yixin Cui, a philosophy major and music minor, has been involved with the music-making scene on campus since their first year. Cui has been active in the Chorus and Garnet Singers, Fetter Chamber Music, private lessons, Chinese Music Ensemble, Orchestra and Lab Orchestra, which has kept them engaged with the sounds of campus as they have simultaneously explored their own sound through composition. 

Throughout their time at Swarthmore, Cui has developed their musicianship skills and chops as a composer. This semester they will hold a special senior recital showcasing vocal, piano, and sign music by Chinese composers, including themself. The recital takes place on April 5 at 8pm in Lang Concert Hall. This semester will also see the premiere of Twink Death, a music-theater production, or as Cui calls it a “Gesamtkuns-Twerk.” The piece features a large chamber ensemble and will be performed at the Fetter Chamber Music Concert on April 28 at 7:30pm, also in Lang Concert Hall. Salome Jin, a performer in this unusual piece, comments, “I have never been involved in a more surreal work than Twink Death, and I could not even describe how much fun I had during the rehearsals. Twink Death is an avant-garde piece that brings not only the audience but also us, the performers, a transtemporal and dreamlike experience.”

Cui jokes that their mother intended to “forge a [musical] child prodigy,” and that’s what started them on their path as a musician. That journey began with piano lessons, but soon expanded. “In my sixth year of elementary school, a teacher identified that I had a rare tenor voice and encouraged me to audition for a selective local vocal program,” explains Cui. They ranked first regionally in their auditions and were accepted into one of the top middle schools in the province through the program. 

Cui’s focus shifted after middle school, and they drifted away from singing, only to find their way back again at Swarthmore. "In my sophomore year, during a coaching session for a Schubert Lieder performance on piano with Zhihan Chen '24, voice teacher Lara Nie encouraged me to sing Zhihan's vocal line to shape our interpretation. This led Lara to persuade me to resume voice lessons.” Since then, Cui has performed tenor solos in Chorus & Garnet Singers, presented Italian and German art songs at Fetter concerts, and was awarded a Freeman Scholarship earlier this year for their promise as a vocalist. 

This semester, Cui will debut a new work written for the Garnet Singers at their concert. “The piece ‘Du: nouvelle prière bouddhique,’ where ‘Du’ translates to ‘Deliverance,’ is a Buddhist-inspired ‘Requiem’ that believes in rebirth and can be sung to non-human creatures.” Cui will also conduct a piece entitled Õhtul by Estonian composer Pärt Uusberg at the Garnet Singers concert. “Conducting Garnet Singers has been a distinctly different experience from my work with Lab Orchestra, as choral conducting requires unique strategies. For example, vocal ensembles need warm-ups, unlike orchestras, and singers function as very different instruments with their own lexicon for musical feedback and instruction.” While Cui claims their mother’s attempts to create a musical prodigy were in vain, many around campus have recognized their talent for piano, voice, and composition.

Besides music, Cui has also pursued a Philosophy degree while at Swarthmore; sometimes blending the strange worlds of music and philosophy together into topics like autogynephilia in MUSI 022: 19th-Century Music in Europe and the U.S. One of their senior theses in philosophy focuses on the ontology of aleatoric music within the context of the Chinese guqin tradition. For the first year after graduation, Cui will remain around campus as they work with several ensembles, including the Orchestra which will debut Cui's original orchestral compositions in the fall. During that time they intend to work on applications for voice or composition graduate programs in the U.S. If their career pursuits in music don’t work, Cui has noted an interest in law or in philosophy.

Cui’s unique talent and humor will be on full display at their recital on April 5 at 8 PM, and the performance of their piece, Twink Death, on April 28 in Lang Concert Hall at 7:30 PM. Cui will also conduct Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 at the same concert as Twink Death. Cui’s new work for the Garnet Singers debuts at their concert on April 25 where they will also conduct. This is all in addition to their inclusion in numerous Lunch Hour Concerts and senior recitals for David Ornelas, Moss Wacker, and Kielor Tung. The final personal performance for their undergraduate studies will be on May 2 at 8 pm where they will perform art songs by French composers including Olivier Messiaen with Aaron Thammavongxay ‘25 accompanying on piano.

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Favorite music course at Swarthmore? For a class I didn’t get a chance to take: Music 14 [Harmony and Counterpoint Form 4]. For one I did, Music 40E [the unofficial fifth course in the Music 40 series].

Favorite music-making experience? Playing and having lessons of all those instruments that I never played before or would have the chance to play like harpsichord, organ, yangqin, and shō. And also conducting.

What will you miss most about Swarthmore? The affordability of music. It’s not everywhere that you can have your composition played or play in a chamber group with free coachings. It’s also not everywhere that every piano is a Steinway baby grand.

What noise or sound do you love? Dubstep bass.

What noise or sound do you hate? Onychophagia.

What’s the last song you played on your phone? “Schizophrenia" by Yann Robin.