Kuehn’s music has been described as having “sensuous phrases … producing an effect of high abstraction turning into decadence.”
- Paul Griffiths, The New York Times (May 15, 1998)

"The prize for sonic inventiveness went to Mikel Kuehn's Chiaroscuro, a work for cello and electroacoustics. Its interaction between performer and speakers and subtle sonic explorations of recorded and real cello sounds was both interesting and engaging."
- Michael Huebner, The Birmingham News (April 6, 2008) 

"Five stars: A composer with a unique, expressive, and moving voice." - Huntley Dent (Fanfare Magazine January 2023)

The music of American composer Mikel Kuehn has received awards and honorable recognition from ASCAP and BMI (student composer awards), the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2000 and 2002 First Hearing Contests), Composers, Inc. (Lee Ettelson Award), the Copland House (Aaron Copland Award), Eastman (Hanson and McCurdy Prizes), the Flute New Music Consortium (First Prize), the Guggenheim Foundation (2014 Fellowship), the International Destellos Competition on Electroacoustic Music (Argentina), the League of Composers/ISCM Composers' Competition (First Prize), the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Contest, the Ohio Arts Council (Individual Excellence Awards), and the Luigi Russolo Competition (Italy). Twice selected to represent the United States abroad (by ISCM and SEAMUS), in both the acoustic and electroacoustic mediums, Kuehn's works have been programmed on numerous concerts, conferences, and festivals internationally. His music has been commissioned by the Barlow Endowment, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Ensemble 21, Ensemble Dal Niente, Flexible Music, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, violist John Graham, clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, the Hoff-Barthelson Music School, cellist Craig Hultgren, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), guitarist Dan Lippel, pianist Marilyn Nonken, Quatuor Apollinaire (France), Perspectives of New Music, saxophonists Jean-Michel Goury and John Sampen, Selmer Paris, the Spektral Quartet, and the Thelema Trio (Belgium). He has been a resident composer at the Banff Centre (Canada), the Copland House, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). In March of 2013, six of his works were featured at the Vienna Saxfest held at Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität (Vienna) and in July of 2009 three of his works were featured at World Saxophone Congress XV. In 2014 and 2017 he was guest composer at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music (Chengdu, China).

Starting July 1, 2023, Kuehn will join the composition faculty of the Eastman School of Music where he will direct the Eastman Audio Research Studio (formerly the Eastman Computer Music Center).  From 1998 to 2023 he was Professor of Creative Arts Excellence at Bowling Green State University where he served as director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music and the Bowling Green New Music Festival from 2007-2010. He received degrees in composition from the Eastman School of Music (PhD, MA) and the University of North Texas (BM) and is author of the computer music application nGen. His music can be heard on two portrait albums from New Focus Recordings: Objet/Shadow (2016) and Entanglements (2022). Other recordings of his works are available on ACA Digital, Centaur (CDCM series), Erol (France), ICMC (Ireland), MSR Classics, and Perspectives of New Music/Open Space. 

This artist was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022