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Hugo Alexander Cruz Machado is a Cuban-born, award winning, internationally renowned drummer and composer who has performed in South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, and the United States. Hugo is the leader of the group Caminos, who fuse rhythms and melodies of Afro-Cuban, Cuban, and American jazz and funk styles in an original contemporary expression that honors traditional Cuban form. In 2022, Hugo Cruz and Caminos released their first original album Punto de Partida, composed of 8 original songs written by Hugo, and recorded by musicians from Pittsburgh and Cuba.

Caminos have made appearances at Fábrica de Artes in Havana, Cuba, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival 2019, First Night Pittsburgh 2020, City of Asylum, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Con Alma, The Frick Museum, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Westsylvania Jazz and Blues Festival, Washington and Jefferson College, the August Wilson Center, Chamber Music Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust events, among others.

While a resident of Cuba, Hugo toured regularly with Síntesis, a leading Afrocuban rock-fusion group. Hugo has performed in Havana’s largest jazz festival, Jazz Plaza, with acclaimed artists Dave Weckl and Victor Goines. He is a graduate of the Instituto de Superior de Arte, the leading arts university of Cuba, and in 2014, won the award as the “best drummer” at the international Festival del Tambor Guillermo Barreto in Memoriam in Havana, Cuba.

Hugo has shared the stage and studio with many of Cuba’s leading musicians, such as La Trovuntivitis, Tony Guzmán y Su Poder Latino, Síntesis, Janio Abreu y Aire de Concierto, Adrian Berazain, Interactivo, Zule Guerra, and Mayco de Alma. Hugo has performed and recorded with notable Pittsburgh artists, including Dr. James Johnson, Ernest McCarty Jr., Tubby Daniels, Afro Yaqui Music Collective, Dwayne Dolphin, Mark Strickland, Max Leake, and Etta Cox. Hugo has taught percussion, drumset, and Afro-Cuban music workshops at the Afro American Music Institute and guest teaches at Duquesne University, University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Propel Schools, and several youth and cultural organizations throughout Pittsburgh.

In 2023, Cruz received a grant through City of Asylum Pittsburgh to produce and perform three concerts in a series that threaded performance, film, and mini lectures about Cuban music history, featuring guest Cuban diasporic artists and local musicians. Hugo was a recipient of the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Grant 2022 through The Pittsburgh Foundation, in which he produced and taught a workshop series about Afro-Cuban music and percussion at the Afro American Music Institute. Most recently, Hugo was awarded a Creative Development Grant through The Heinz Endowments to produce and record his second album with his musical ensemble Caminos.

In 2023, Hugo was a featured guest teacher and composer for Duquesne University’s Big Band directed by Mike Tomaro, a renowned composer and arranger in the region, who arranged four of Hugo’s compositions to be performed in a culminating concert by the graduate student ensemble. Hugo’s music was also arranged and performed by students in a World Music class at Duquesne University in 2021.