Camila Meza
Biography Camila Meza
Camila Meza
was born in Santiago, Chile in 1985. She got her start playing music around age 15 in her hometown in Chile. She released her first album Skylark in 2007, and moved to New York in 2009 to attend the New School for Jazz. She soon established herself on the New York scene, as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Camila’s style fuses many different influences. She has a strong command of South American musical styles, including Samba and Bossa. With her small floating voice on top of her more jazz laden guitar playing, she is a force unto herself. Her second album,Traces, features Kendrick Scott, Matt Penman, and Shai Maestro, and received wide acclaim. In addition to releasing a good load of music, she maintains and directs her own octet, the Nectar Ensemble. Some other Musicians that she has played with are Lucas Pino, Fabian Almazan, and Steve Cardenas.
Equally prized as a vocalist, guitarist and composer, Meza has uplifted audiences worldwide with her assured and beautiful singing, highly advanced guitar (both self-accompaniment and blistering solo work), and vivid, melodic songwriting that reveals complex layers with every listen. She’s been hailed by The New York Times for her “appealing combination of lightness and depth … singing in a bright, clear voice against the agile stir of a first-rate band. Her improvising, on electric or acoustic guitar, is serious business….” In 2019 she released her fifth album, Ambar, on Sony Music Masterworks, producing it herself and proudly unveiling the Nectar Orchestra, a collaboration with bassist and arranger Noam Wiesenberg. Meza moved from Chile to New York at 23, graduating in 2013 from The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where she studied with Peter Bernstein, Vic Juris, Sam Yahel, Steve Cardenas and Gil Goldstein, among others. Bringing a sound full of warmth and clarity to the New York jazz scene ever since, she has distinguished herself as a member of Ryan Keberle’s Catharsis and Fabian Almazan’s Rhizome, and has also worked with Paquito D’Rivera, Aaron Goldberg, Sachal Vasandani and many more. She has appeared at festivals worldwide as well as NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series and WBGO’s The Checkout, garnering praise from The Village Voice, The Wall St. Journal and many other outlets. In 2018, Pat Metheny enlisted her to perform and act as musical director for his NEA Jazz Masters induction ceremony at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. In 2022 she was named “#1 Rising Star Female Vocalist” by Downbeat Magazine.
