Directed by Dan Gailey
A fluidly inventive Chilean jazz guitarist and singer-songwriter, Camila Meza makes ambitious, lyrical music that combines progressive fusion, post-bop and Latin American folk traditions. It’s a sophisticated sound born out of her love for artists like Pat Metheny, Milton Nascimento and Joni Mitchell. Meza first garnered attention with her 2007 debut, Skylark, before moving to New York. Since then, she has collaborated on projects with other boundary-pushing artists like Ryan Keberle, Aaron Goldberg and Fabian Almazan. Applying her distinctive approach to jazz and pop standards as well as her own emotive original pieces, Meza has garnered widespread acclaim for her genre-crossing albums, including 2009’s Retrato, 2016’s Traces, and 2019’s ebulliently orchestral Ambar.
She will perform with the KU Jazz Ensemble I led by Dan Gailey, director of Jazz Studies. The program has received 29 DownBeat Student Music Awards, including the ensemble’s 2021, 2019 and 2015 awards in the Graduate Division for Best College Big Band in the U.S. or Canada, and their Outstanding Performance Awards in the same division in 2022 and 2017. They have had the distinction of playing at many prestigious jazz festivals and venues, including the Montreux Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz, Jazz À Vienne Festival, The Kennedy Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
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