Maggi Payne is Co-Director (since 1992) of the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College where she teaches recording engineering, composition, and electronic music. She was a production engineer at a major Bay Area Radio Station for ten years. She also freelances as a recording engineer and editor.

She has had performances of her works throughout the United States and Europe, including the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Waveform 2001 Australasian Computer Music Association Conference, Ought-One, Merkin Hall, Bang on a Can Marathon '99, 1999 'Imaginary Space' Australasian Computer Music Conference at Victoria University of Wellington, CNMAT, the 1st-5th Annual Santa Fe International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music, Pacific Marathon III (West-Coast) at Cultuurcentrum de Oosterpoort in the Netherlands, SEAMUS '99, Women of Vision series on PBS KCSM-TV, Vidarte Festival at the National Center for the Arts in Mexico City, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Northwestern University, CalArts, Sonic Circuits IV Festival of Electronic Music, the Next Wave Festival eXstatic Project in Australia, OPUS415 No.3 in San Francisco, Not Still Art Festival, ƒnCue SŽries XVI at Concordia University in Montreal, SoundCulture '96, New Music Across America Festival '92, New Music America '90, '87 and '81 Festivals, Composers' Forum in NYC, Experimental Intermedia Foundation in NYC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, SEAMUS, Western Front, Siggraph, CADRE, University of California at Santa Cruz, Cal State Northridge, Texas Tech University, University of Hartford, College of Santa Fe, Media Study/Buffalo, New Langton Arts in SF, New York Museum of Modern Art, Paris Autumn Festival, Bourges Festival in France, and the Autunno Musical at Como, Italy.

She has received two Composer's Grants and an Interdisciplinary Arts Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and video grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowships Program. She has had two honorary mentions from Bourges, one from Prix Ars Electronica, and placed in the Barlow and "Luigi Russolo" per giovani compositor di Musica Elettroacoustica competitions.

Works include System Test (fire and ice), Holding Pattern, Forest Sounds, breaks/motors, White Turbulence 2000, HUM 2, Sweet Dreams, Close-ups, Raw Data, Apparent Horizon, Minutia 0-13, Liquid Metal, Aeolian Confluence, Resonant Places, Desertscapes, Phase Transitions, Songs of Flight, Ahh-Ahh (ver 2.1), Airwaves (realities), White Night, Subterranean Network, Crystal, Solar Wind, Ling, Scirocco, Transparencies and HUM.

Her solo CD, Crystal, is on the Lovely Music label, as are her compositions, Lunar Dusk and Lunar Earthrise. breaks/motors is on the Oasis: Music from Mills 2001 CD, White Turbulence 2000 is on Stark land's Immersion VD and VD-A. Airwaves is on the Another Coast CD from Music and Arts, HUM, Confluence, and Inflections are on The Extended Flute CD on RI, Resonant Places is on the CDCM series CD (volume 17) from Centaur, Desertscapes is on the Desertscapes CD from MMC, MoirŽ is on the Storm of Drones CD from Asphodel, She Began and Chris Mann are on Frog Peak CDs, Raw Data is on the END ID CD on Digital Narcis, Apparent Horizon was published in Postwest, and Subterranean Network is on the Mills College Anthology.