Tona Scherchen, also Tona Scherchen-Hsiao (Simplified Chinese: 萧桐; born 12 March 1938 in Neuchâtel), is one of the first composers who brought Chinese elements into European avant-garde art music. Tona Scherchen was born into a musical family in Switzerland. Her father was conductor Hermann Scherchen and her mother was composer Xiao Shuxian. She spent the first 12 years of her life in Europe, particularly in Switzerland. She arrived in China in 1950 with her mother and her older sister Féfé. In 1956, just a year before China fell into political chaos, she returned to Europe to be with her father in order to pursue further music education.Her teachers included György Ligeti and Hans Werner Henze.