Biography
Biography
Maria Sappho is a Puerto Rican American, originally from Brooklyn, NY currently working as an improviser, artist and researcher in the UK. She is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and founding member of the Noisebringers ensemble (CH/UK). She is a winner of the BBC Radiophophonic Daphne Oram award (2021), Dewar awards (2018) and New Piano Stars Competition (2015). She has worked with a number of large ensembles; International Contemporary Ensemble (US), BBC Scottish symphony orchestra, Australian Art Orchestra, and the Instant Composers Pool (ND).
Currently Maria's work is deeply involved in experimental AI where she has an ongoing collaboration with the world's only multi-modal creative AI named Chimere.
Maria is a doctoral candidate at Huddersfield University, on the European Research Council project IRiMaS where she continues her work in advocating/platforming artists via her Feminist Free Improvisation Archive, (for women and non-binary artists), curating for Mopomoso TV (oldest running free improvisation series in the UK) and co-editing the monthly political arts magazine the Mass.
Education and Awards
Maria was, not too long ago, a classical pianist, studying at Laguardia Highschool often known for it's representation in the 'Fame' movies. She then moved to the UK to study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she gained both her Undergraduate (hon. first class) and Masters degree. She is now a PhD candidate at Huddersfield University under the ERC funded project IRiMaS .
Maria has won several awards including the Governors Recital Prize, the New Piano Stars competition, the Dewar Awards, and the BBC radiophonic Daphne Oram Awards.
Education and Awards
Maria Guerra Sappho is an artist and researcher exploring techno-social communities, experimental instrument-building, and artificial intelligence in creative practice. Her work navigates diaspora, ecology, cultural memory, and postcolonial histories through posthuman feminist and techno-moral lenses.
She is Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Digital Playgrounds for Music (DPfM) at the University of Huddersfield, where she also completed her PhD within the ERC-funded Interactive Research in Music as Sound (IRiMaS) project. She is also a lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and supervises
postgraduate research at the Institute for Contemporary Music Performance, London.
Maria currently leads the Syzygy project (Immersive Arts UK funded), a Mixed Reality-based ecological storytelling installation, and is Composer-in-Residence with the Bahué Duo (USA), developing new work on diaspora and land. She co-founded Chimère Communities, establishing grassroots AI art hubs
across Lesotho, South Africa, Switzerland, and the UK.
Internationally recognised as a composer and performer, she has performed with Mogwai, the International Contemporary Ensemble (USA), and is a long-serving member of the Glasgow
Improvisers Orchestra. Her recent works include The Tentaculae (Creative Climate Award nominee, NYC), The Ostoyae (UNESCO Week of Sound), and Zemi (Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival).
Her awards include the BBC Daphne Oram Award (UK), the AiiA AI Prize (Switzerland), and the MANE Emerging Composer Prize (Australia). She is co-author of New Directions in Musical Collaborative Creativity (Oxford University Press, 2025), and her research has been published in leading journals across music, technology, and critical theory.
Recent Publications
MacDonald, R., DeNora, T., Sappho, M., Burke, R., & Birrell, R. (2025). New directions in musical collaborative creativity. Oxford University Press.McPherson, H., & Sappho, M. (2025). I would be an improviser even if I was born on the moon. Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 15(1).
Sappho, M., O’Hear, J., Ponlot, N., Frank, C., MacDonald, M., & Chimère. (2025). Driving Ms. Chimère: Developing community-led interdisciplinary artistic works in collaboration with AI. ECHO Journal. https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/driving-ms-chimère-developing-community-led-interdisciplinary-artBurke, R. L., Sappho, M., Birrell, R., MacDonald, R., & DeNora, T. (2024). Opening up openings: Zooming in on improvisation in the Theatre of Home. Psychology of Music. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356241247528Gillies, S., & Sappho, M. (2021). Donohue+: Developing performer-specific electronic improvisation. Organised Sound, 26(1), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771821000121
MacDonald, R., Burke, R., DeNora, T., Sappho, M., & Birrell, R. (2021). Our virtual tribe: Online improvisation during COVID. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.623640
Research interests
Feminist and postcolonial approaches to AI and music technologyExperimental instrument-building and improvisationXR/immersive storytelling and ecological practicesDiaspora, cultural memory, and posthuman immigration