Originally from San Jose, California, Sylvia's interest in drumming began when she was twelve years old. Her father gave her guitar lessons, but she gravitated toward banging on household pots and pans. At twenty one, Cuenca moved to New York to pursue her career. Soon thereafter, she joined Joe Henderson for a European tour and subsequently spent the next four years with the sax player.

For the past five years, Cuenca has been the drummer for trumpet legend Clark Terry. His quintet appears annually at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note in New York City, as well as on tours and clinics throughout the United States and Europe. Cuenca also leads her own groups in the New York City area.

Besides receiving jazz performance grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991, Cuenca was a semi-finalist in the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Drummer Competition. More recently, she was artist-in-residence at the Clark Terry Institute of Jazz at Westmar University in Lemars, Iowa and the Stanford Jazz Workshop in California.

Cuenca says she hopes to tour and record with her group in the near future. In the meantime, her work with Terry and others provides valuable learning experience. Says Sylvia, 'I want to grow and learn as much as I can from the masters of this music.'

Cuenca's position of being the rare woman in the male-dominated world of jazz is also notable. 'I consider myself to be a pioneer in the field,' she says proudly. 'But this is just something I love to do. I'm a drummer who happens to be a woman. The music doesn't have a gender. Sure, the discrimination is there, but I can't focus on that. My focus is taking care of business on the bandstand.' "
-Modern Drummer, May 1998