Cecilia Suhr is an intermedia artist and researcher, multi-instrumentalist (violin/cello/voice/piano/bamboo flute), multimedia composer, interaction designer, painter, author, and improviser. She has received numerous awards in the fields of music, visual art, interactive media, and academic research, including the MacArthur Foundation, Digital Media and Learning Research Grant Award (2012), Pauline Oliveros Award from the International Alliance from Women in Music (2022), The American Prize (2022) "Honorable Mention" for Virtual Performance Category (community div), Bronze Medal Winner from the Global Music Awards (2022), Best of Competition Winner in Interactive Media and Emerging Technologies from the Broadcast Education Association, Festival of Media Arts Competition (2023), Silver Medal Award from the International Cambridge Music Competition (2023),Second Prize Winner (no First Winner announced) in Violin Performance/Original Composition, American International Music Competition, Cleveland, 2023, Saint Michael Achievement Medal from International Juried Fine Arts Competition, (2013), Honorable Mention in the Mixed Media Category from the New York City International Fine Art Contest held by Gateway Art Center NYC (2016), a People’s Choice Award, Juried Exhibition, Pop Revolution Gallery, Mason, OH (2015), Special Recognition Award from the International Abstracts Art Competition, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery (2012). She was also selected for the 2022 Asia Culture Center International Residency Award in Gwangju, Korea; however, due to scheduling conflicts at work, she had to turn it down. She was honored with Miami University Regional's Faculty Achievement in Scholarship and Artistic Distinction Award in 2021.
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Cecilia Suhr's improvisational performance on the violin, cello, piano, and bamboo flute, as well as her voice, often interact with live electronics, video, or fixed media, transcending the boundaries between audience and performer, vision and sound, motion and stasis, digital and analog, and seen and unseen reality. Sometimes her performances become audience participatory works, honoring unity and group bonding while enhancing the intimate and embodied experience of her live performances. To date, she has used interactive techniques like color tracking, face tracking, and sound drawing in her intermedia performance works to create a distinctive audio-visual experience. In addition to the art installation and camera installation, she meticulously plans human-centered interactions. Her creative process results in a distinctive fusion of multiple media, including installation, video, performance art, and improvisation in an electro-acoustic musical style, which serves as the foundation for all the other media.
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​Her creative work has been featured nationally and internationally at the New York City Electro-Acoustic Festival (NYCEMF), International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), The Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), Society of Composers (SCI), Electronic Music Midwest Festival (EMM), Australasian Computer Music Conference (ACMC), Mantis Festival, International Multimedia Arts Festival, New Music Gathering, Turn Up Festival, Splice Festival, Hot Air Music Festival, Moxonic Festival, Beast Feast, Irish Sound, Science & Technology Association, Ammerman Center Biennial Symposium, Performing Media Arts Festival, Festival of Contemporary Art Music, Oh My Ear Festival, iDMAa, Audio Mostly Conference, Tenor Conference, New Music on the Bayou Festival, ACM International Conference on Multimedia, Harvard University, Yale University, International Conference/Festival of Music, Technology & Ideas, Music Diaries Festival, Klingt Gut International Symposium on Sonic Art and Spatial Audio, CICA Museum, IANG Gallery, Pensacola Museum of Art, Outside the Box Biennial, Artech: International Conference on Digital and Interactive Arts, National Associations of Composers, ELO Conference and Media Arts Festival, etc.
Her work has been publicly collected by the Marina Tsvetaeva House Museum in Moscow, IANG Gallery, NamSeoul University (permanent collection), Sisters of St. Paul of Charities, and KT Korea.
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As a researcher, she is the author of Social Media and Music: The Digital Field of Cultural Production (2012, Peter Lang Press) and Evaluation and Credentialing in Digital Music Communities (MIT Press, 2014). She also served as an editor and contributing author to Online Evaluation of Creative Arts (Routledge Press, 2014). Her articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Critical Arts, New Media and Society, International Journal of the Humanities, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, ACM conference proceedings, etc.
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She holds an M.A. from New York University in Media Ecology, a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in Media Studies, and a certificate of completion in audio-visual practice from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Humanities and Creative Arts and an Affiliate Professor of Art at Miami University Regionals, Ohio.
