Cynthia Folio studied theory and composition with Joseph Schwantner, Robert Morris, and Larry Nelson and flute with Bonita Boyd and Emily Swartley Newbold. Her undergraduate school, West Chester University, granted her a Distinguished Alumni Award (1989). Other awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, composer residency at the Yaddo Artist Colony and at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, nineteen consecutive ASCAP Standard Awards, winner in the 1994 and 1999 New Music Delaware Competitions, two winning entries in the National Flute Association Newly Published Music Competition (in 1994 and 2012), and grants from Meet the Composer and the American Music Center. She has received commissions from the Mendelssohn Club, Relâche, Network for New Music, Hildegard Chamber Players, Astral Artistic Servieces, Anna Crusis Women's Choir, PA Music Teachers Association, Pi Kappa Lambda, SAI, and others. She has served as guest composer at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Festival of Women Composers, West Chester University Composer Symposium, the Kerry Walker/Julius Baker Masterclass, and the University of New Mexico Composer Symposium.