Dawn Xiana Moon - Famous Chinese Americans

Dawn Xiana Moon (?????????, born August 27, 1985 in Singapore) is a singer-songwriter, editor, dancer, actress, and cultural critic. She mixes folk and pop on both the piano and guitar, reminiscent of artists such as Vienna Teng, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, Sufjan Stevens, Over the Rhine and Sarah McLachlan. She is an innovator - the first singer-songwriter to meld Western folk and pop music with Eastern influences - and sings in French, Mandarin, and English. She was the Movies and Deeper Walk Editor for Relevant Magazine for three years, where she wrote essays exploring the intersection of faith and culture, advocating that Christians engage the arts a serious manner. Moon is also a model and does all of the design and coding for her own albums and website.

Moon's middle name is a play on her Chinese name, Li Xing ("Beautiful Star"). "Xia" translates to "the glow of the morning sun," while "na" translates to "beautiful." She has one sibling, a brother named Benjamin.

The Chinese American was born in the city-state of Singapore and began studying classical piano at the age of five, the same year her family moved to the United States, settling in Metro Detroit. While in high school, she earned prizes for piano, flute, and voice in regional competitions. However, during her first year at the University of Michigan, where she earned her AB in Theatre and English Literature, she taught herself to play the guitar and began writing her own music, shifting to an acoustic, folk-oriented style. In April 2006, the singer-songwriter moved to Chicago, where she now resides in the Lincoln Square neighborhood. She tours frequently, primarily in the Midwest.

She also contributed music to Ryan Myers's film Chase + Mello , which tells the story of two teenage artists in the urban ruins of Detroit.

In addition to her stage work, Dawn Xiana Moon has worked in film. She appears in Motivational Growth and Detroit Unleaded, both set to release in 2011.

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