C.M. Soto began her creative journey in Oregon, expanded her practice in New Orleans, and relocated to New York in 2023 to immerse herself in the city’s vibrant artistic landscape. She has built a multidisciplinary career driven by experimentation and storytelling.

Her work has earned recognition in multiple screenwriting competitions, and she was recently hired to write a horror video game. She currently performs with her band, Vuzz, and in her multimedia musical, I Scream Theater. Her work has appeared in theaters, music venues, galleries, on screen, online, and in publications worldwide.

In her spare time, she enjoys mixology, horticulture, and travel.

LONG BIO

C.M. Soto (Vinylux) obtained her early music education from her mother’s turntable and vast album collection. She was inspired by the theatricality of acts such as Queen, Electric Light Orchestra, and David Bowie. Throughout her junior high, high school, and college years, she sang alto in advanced choir groups, performing and touring in the U.S. and Canada. For six years, Soto hosted eclectic college radio shows as a disc jockey. Music was her first passion.

Following a creative writing path, Soto completed her B.A. in English/Writing and amassed more than 50 publications and six produced theatrical plays. She participated in two Northwest Drama Conferences with her dark comedy, Begging Man with Woman Who Is Clearly Bored.

In 1996, Soto left her home state of Oregon to attend graduate-level film school in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a focus on scriptwriting. Her son, Athen, was four. Soto’s interest in film led to small-scale television and movie work. In 2002, Soto consolidated her previously published poems into a chapbook of poetry and photos, These Are the Rooms to My Mother’s House. The book debuted at the New Orleans Museum of Art’s photography event, Underexposed.

Soto danced with the performance art troupe NooMoon, taking gigs in New Orleans and Los Angeles. After leading two bands as a singer-songwriter, Soto adopted the name “Vinylux” and went solo at the 2004 Voodoo Music Experience (VoodooFest). Vinylux grew a following by performing weekly at local venues and art houses. She sang and played synths, samplers, Theremin-based lasers, and real-time audio samples from a turntable.

In 2004, Soto combined her interdisciplinary gifts into a dark one-act musical, Ice Scream Theater. This autobiographical marriage of film, poetry, music, photography, and theater was accepted into the Contemporary Arts Center’s Dramarama in 2004.

Soto learned the graphic arts by creating her band’s posters and designing her own books. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, Soto’s family was displaced to southern Alabama. She returned to the service industry as a bartender and graphic designer. She created catering packets, brochures, and menus for a growing business, which caught the attention of the local newspaper. The Fairhope Courier recruited Soto, and she became a full-time graphic designer for Gulf Coast Newspapers. In 2007, she returned home to New Orleans, where she launched her own graphic design company.

Soto and her son moved to her hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, the following year. With a partner, she designed websites and print marketing for festivals, restaurants, nonprofits, and government agencies as Optilux Design. The duo created the exhibit, Graphic Design as Art Form, which opened at the Klamath Falls Art Gallery in southern Oregon in 2010.

In her hometown, Soto founded The Creativity Collective to provide resources, networking, opportunities, and education for artists and art enthusiasts. It incorporated as a nonprofit in May 2009 and opened a 6,000-square-foot community art center, The Contemporary Arts Kitchen (CAK). It acquired an additional 4,000 square feet the following year. The group received grants and recognition for its programming and youth mentorship. In November 2011, The Creativity Collective became a 501(c)(3), and the board of directors voted unanimously to move the nonprofit to New Orleans. Soto served as executive director for 12 years. After a short leave of absence, she returned as president until the nonprofit’s dissolution in 2020.

Before returning to the South, Soto launched The Traveling New Orleans Show. This 29-piece art exhibit showcased New Orleans culture, music, festivals, traditions, food, and the largest natural disaster on American soil, Hurricane Katrina. The show opened in 2011 at the Ross Ragland Theater, followed by an exhibit at the Klamath County Library. In December 2012, Soto’s theatrical comedy, In the Company of Killjoys, was produced at CAK as part of the Snowflake Festival. In May, her son turned 18. Soto and her family returned to New Orleans the following November.

In 2013, Soto revamped her multimedia musical, Ice Scream Theater. The 55-minute play, featuring Nicole Lovince, played three nights at the New Orleans Fringe Festival. Soto re-released her chapbook, These Are the Rooms to My Mother’s House, to accompany the production.

In 2016, Soto rebooted Ice Scream Theater, performing the show at Mudlark Theater and at the Marigny Opera House the following year. Soto debuted original props and costumes, such as wings made of vinyl records, a floor-length birdcage skirt, and a working timepiece belt. She released the show’s music on CD to accompany the final production.

In 2018, Soto traveled for three months through Europe and the UK, busking with her art rock band, Vuzz. Their street performances culminated at the 61st Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Back in the United States, Vuzz played New Orleans clubs until the COVID-19 shutdown. The profound trauma and loss of Christy’s son to fentanyl poisoning shook Soto’s world. Unable to remain in the town where she raised her son, Soto gave up her New Orleans home and possessions in favor of the DIY van conversion she had begun with her son and bandmate. With her bandmate, she completed the minimalist van with a maximalist aesthetic and circled the U.S. for a year to process the loss. After months of healing and hardship, Vuzz finished recording their first full-length album.

In 2022, Soto settled in New York to pursue music, screenwriting, and theater. Since then, she has placed in multiple screenwriting competitions with her supernatural thriller spec script, Boo. Her band, Vuzz, plays throughout Brooklyn and in the Bowery neighborhood of CBGB fame. She revamped Ice Scream Theater into a two-act production, slightly changing the name to I Scream Theater. Today, Vuzz combines their artistic and travel passions on stage and online—creating all their own music, videos, artwork, and social media, and sharing their journey with the world.

After a brief stint bartending, Soto returned to the marketing world as a social media manager and was promoted to marketing manager for a Brooklyn-based Century 21 real estate franchise. Vuzz released its second album, World Enough and Time, in the summer of 2026.