Clef Notes Chicagoland Journal for the Arts

Chilean jazz musician Camila Meza is well-known for her fresh improvizations and her intuitive blending of voice and instrument in a seamless outpouring of music. Ever since the musical upstart left Chile for New York in 2009 to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, she has grown more and more influential as an artist of rank. Almost immediately, she became a regular at jazz clubs in the Big Apple, and as such etched out a reputation of superlative mastery of both voice and guitar, something rare in the jazz world. And as a composer and arranger, she’s developed a voice that embraces both jazz and Latin American traditions, something that is clearly expressed in her recordings for Chilean record label Vertice Records. Having performed in South American, Europe and the US, Meza is already becoming a veteran on the global circuit. She’s performed at the Blue Note of Poznan in Poland and the Swindnica Jazz Festival.

With the announcement that it is receiving the largest foundation grant in its history, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has recently said the $2.5 million award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will enable the museum to take continued action in its mission to elevate contemporary art and artists, while accelerating the museum’s commitments to the values of IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and access), during the challenges presented by the COVID pandemic. The MCA is one of 12 mid-sized cultural institutions across the country awarded funding from the Mellon Foundation’s new Art Museum Futures Fund, based in part on the vital function the museums serve in meeting the needs of their communities and their admirable response during the pandemic.