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), an 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-art
• Burke, 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/10.1177/03057356241247528
• Gillies, 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 technology
• Experimental instrument-building and improvisation
• XR/immersive storytelling and ecological practices
• Diaspora, cultural memory, and posthuman immigration

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Last updated 26th August 2025