SUUVI is a Cuban-Chinese multidisciplinary artist and social impact advocate.
As a performer, producer, speaker, composer, and creator, she combines her experience of 15+ years on renowned global stages as a cello soloist with a passion for technology, innovation, storytelling, and change to create bespoke works and experiences that cater to today’s contemporary culture.
Blending tradition and timeless mastery with a profound understanding of contemporary audiences, her work activates spaces, brands, and ideas in the physical and digital worlds through live performance, music, visual art, and film.
SUUVI’s practice as an artist and creator today is rooted in the discipline and foundation of her classical training and fueled by a deep curiosity for understanding humanity and its individual and societal challenges.
Her unique multicultural/lingual background combined with experience working across various sectors has equipped her with the ability to understand universal themes and bridge gaps between diverse communities.
By creating experiences and works rooted in the promotion of self-actualization and unity through art, she inspires personal transformation and bridges cultural divides (full bio below).
SUUVI (aka Sophia Bacelar/唐凝智) was born in 1996 in the United States to a family of Cuban and Chinese political refugees. Being raised in a multicultural and multilingual environment deeply impacted her sense of identity and place in the world and later informed her artistry and career path.
Her journey began as a child prodigy. Influenced by her father, a cellist and luthier, she began studying cello at age two and was accepted to Juilliard at ten years old, where she studied cello, piano, and composition and embarked on the rigorous pursuit of becoming a classical soloist. During this time, she also studied visual art and curation at The Museum of Modern Art, as well as traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy.
As a teenager, she began traveling to Europe and Asia to compete in international competitions and, after graduating from high school with honors at age 15, moved alone to Paris where she completed an undergraduate degree at Le Conservatoire de Paris in two years, followed by a postgrad at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. During this time, she also held a C- Suite executive position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology startup, Classeek, where she focused on community, marketing, and partnerships in the development of tools for artists through artificial intelligence and technology.
At age 20, she was given her first yearlong residency at La Fondation Louis Vuitton, which marked the start of an international career performing on some of the world’s most renowned stages, including Carnegie Hall, The Berlin Philharmonie, Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, The Tonhalle Zürich, Victoria Hall, Lincoln Center, St. Martin-In-The-Fields, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and more.
In 2019, she was the only cellist awarded a Celia Asher Fellowship to Juilliard’s prestigious Artist Diploma program and returned to NY where, in addition to music, she studied acting in Juilliard’s drama department and film at Columbia University. During this time, her interest in cross-disciplinary, collaborative work was born and resulted in her winning Juilliard’s Leo B. Ruiz Prize.
She was also the recipient of three career development grants, through which she developed her early multidisciplinary projects including collaborations with San Francisco Ballet and The Fashion Institute of Technology.
Following a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in 2021, SUUVI was scouted by Hans Zimmer and moved to Los Angeles, where joined the cast of his live show and began touring as his featured soloist in arenas worldwide. During this time, she also developed an interest in education, social impact, advocacy, and philanthropy and served as ambassador for The Grammy Music Education Coalition, board member of BODYTRAFFIC, and artist-in-residence at San Francisco Conservatory’s Technology and Applied Composition Department (SFCM). She is currently a member of The Impact Guild and ambassador for Opus 1 Foundation
Through her work at SFCM, she began experimenting with the application of contemporary technology to her musical sound and collaborated with several composers in the creation of original works, eventually resulting in a BMI Composer Award for “Riven”, a piece for cello and electronics and her first EP, “TRANSITION”.
As her artistic voice and sonic palette expanded, SUUVI began working with artists across a wide variety of mediums and is now frequently called upon as a cross-disciplinary collaborator, producer, composer, and speaker in addition to her work as a solo cellist.
In recent years, she has created original works and short films with dancers and choreographers from San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, The Dutch National Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Jacob Jonas The Company, and more. She also created original live scores for dance and theater companies BODYTRAFFIC and Theatre Roscious, both of which premiered in Los Angeles at The Wallis and The Getty Villa in 2023.
In addition, she has also spoken and performed for and alongside political figures, speakers, and thinkers including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, former Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, former Mayor of the City of West Hollywood Sepi Shyne, artists and activists Shantell Martin, Halim Flowers, and Ashlyn So, and global brands including JP Morgan, Harry Winston, Salvatore Ferragamo, Dries Van Noten, Alexis Bittar, Pomellato, NYFW, and GEWA, for whom she also designed a custom-painted cello case that has appeared in their advertising campaigns worldwide.
Her musical versatility as a performer, producer, and composer has led to collaborations with artists from a variety of genres ranging from classical, jazz, Latin, and film to pop, R&B, hip- hop, rock, and electronic that have been broadcast by Amazon Prime, Live Nation, The Violin Channel, Medici.tv, WQXR, Radio France, and more. In 2024, she debuted NXIS, her post-classical duo with Natalie Tenenbaum, whose first release featured a collaboration with rapper D Smoke, and released a collection of Twelve Etudes for cello and piano with Paul Leonard-Morgan, with whom she collaborates closely.
