LONG BIO

Xander Starobin is an indie-folk singer and songwriter from Olney, Maryland. Despite growing up between DC and Boston, he’s come into his young adulthood working on farms and traveling across the American West. Xander’s music offers a pensive reflection on his wide-ranging adventures, and as he discovers new landscapes and new people, the quiet grandeur of their stories inspire his songs. Lush with contrasting imagery of dusk and dawn, land and sky, and light and darkness, Xander’s songs recognize that our inner turmoil can often feel just as dramatic as any rugged mountain range, vast prairie, or punishing desert.

In an age of artificial intelligence, and in a moment when anger is easy to come by and the fabric of our communities grows ever more frayed, Xander’s folk music is a grounding force of mutual recognition. His songs relish the tensions of our biggest emotions, unafraid of melancholy as they embrace optimism. As his songs reach for something ineffable and universal, they help guide us toward our shared humanity.

Xander began playing music when his parents pushed him to study classical piano at 7 years old, but he found his creative spark when he picked up guitar at 14. Drawing on folk icons of the past like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and present-day influences like Gregory Alan Isakov and Watchhouse, Xander has crafted a wide-ranging array of acoustic tunes that cover ground from loneliness to love and everything in between.

When he’s not out in the fields or out on the road, Xander is a senior at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he co-founded the Wesleyan Folk Music Collective. By organizing jam sessions and songwriter showcases and lending his skills to a wide array of bands, Xander has established himself as a mainstay in the Wesleyan scene who loves bringing people together around the warmth of acoustic music.

Xander’s debut single, Afraid to Be Scared, was released on July 17th and is available on all streaming platforms.