About

Camila Cortina Bello is a Cuban-born pianist, composer, and educator whose music bridges ancestral memory and contemporary expression. Drawing from Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz improvisation, and classical form, she crafts soundscapes that speak to identity, resilience, and transformation.
A Yamaha Artist and Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grantee (2025), Camila was also a New Music USA Next Jazz Legacy Fellow (2023), mentored by Terri Lyne Carrington. Her artistry has brought her to stages across the Americas—including the DC Jazz Festival, Cape May Jazz Festival, Ecuador Jazz Festival, and Punta del Este Jazz Festival—and to collaborations with artists such as Paquito D’Rivera, Dianne Reeves, and Miguel Zenón.
Her solo piano work Bravura premiered at London’s Barbican Centre (2024), and she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk with OKAN. In 2024 she was also a finalist for the Cintas Foundation Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition.
Based in New Jersey, Camila is an active performer in New York’s jazz scene. Her music celebrates cultural hybridity while seeking new languages of expression—a continuous journey between rhythm, poetry, and self-discovery.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

Chamber Music America Grantee

New Jazz Works (2025) 

Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition (Finalist)

Cintas Foundation, (2024)

Next Jazz Legacy Awardee

New Music USA, 2023.

Matt Marvuglio Award

Berklee Master's Student of the Year,  June 2022. 

Downbeat Student Award 

Outstanding recognition for original composition for Large Ensemble: "Bop & Hop." May 2022. 

Pianist/Composer Award

Piano Department - Berklee College of Music, April 2020. 

Duke Ellington Award 

Jazz Composition Department - Berklee College of Music, March 2020. 

1st Prize in Jazz Composition Category at Jojazz Contest, Havana. 

Original Composition awarded: De Sevilla a Pogolotti, November 2007. 

Musicalia Award, Havana 

1st Prize in Music Pedagogy, Musicology, and Music Curator categories. Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana, Cuba. June 2007. 

Photo by DC Media