About Camila
"Composer Camila Agosto has been one of the nicest surprises to come to ICE in a long while."
-International Contemporary Ensemble Blog.
Camila Agosto is a composer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator based in New York City. Her recent work and research are inspired by linked concepts of memory, perception, psychoacoustics, and somatic experience. Her electroacoustic music examines how we perceive sound and vibration, exploring their physiological, mental, and emotional impacts. In her work, Camila collaborates with musicians, visual artists, choreographers, and instrument builders, seeking intersections across artistic fields. Her compositions include both fully notated and improvisational works, with an emphasis on timbral and textural exploration. She aims to reveal the sonic potentialities of acoustic instruments while highlighting the human element in live performance. Her projects encompass acoustic and electroacoustic concert works, interdisciplinary collaborations with visual media and dance, installations, and fixed media creations. Storytelling and sharing histories are integral to her work, helping to construct worlds and soundscapes that explore complex concepts and create spaces for healing.
Camila was honored to be the youngest fellow to be accepted to the American Academy in Berlin and is a recipient of the Fall 2023 Berlin Prize and Deutsche Bank Fellowship in Music Composition from the Academy. She was featured in a portrait concert in Berlin this past Fall which included the world premiere of three new works. Her music has been featured by Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, National Sawdust, Symphony Space, Roulette Intermedium, Kasser Theatre, New Latin Wave Festival, Bar Harbor Music Festival, North American Saxophone Alliance, Atlantic Music Festival, FETA FM Festival, Sala Neumann, Blanton Art Gallery, Boston Public Library, International Saxophone Symposium, Arété Gallery, Maison Française at Columbia University, Spectrum, Tenri Cultural Institute, Boston Sculptors Gallery, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music (SEAMUS), Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and KINDL-Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, and has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Quartet121, Semiosis Quartet, Berrow Duo, Ensemble Échappé, to name a few. A finalist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic National Composer Intensive, her music was featured at the Walt Disney Concert Hall during the LA Phil's Noon to Midnight Series. Camila often works with visual artists, choreographers, and film directors on a variety of multimedia projects. Past collaborations include imprint, an electroacoustic installation piece commissioned by Berrow Duo, featuring projected visual media and artwork created by artists from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Upcoming projects include Light Leak II for The Rhythm Method string quartet, expected to premiere March 2025; completion of The Memory of Water Volume II, in collaboration with Martine Kinsella Thomas and Thea Mesirow, expected to premiere Fall 2025; and a new work commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble, expected to premiere in 2026.
In the summer of 2020, Camila became a certified yoga instructor and created the Meristem Artist Retreat, a virtual space for artists of marginalized genders to meet a variety of artists across different disciplines while learning holistic and balanced practices to help them sustain a healthy artistic life. Since then, Camila has founded Meristem Artists, to extend this work outside of the retreat. She has also developed and led a wellness workshop series through the Columbia University Computer Music Center, the Meristem Artist summer retreats, and was an invited guest presenter at the Ensemble Evolution summer sessions led by the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Camila is currently an ABD doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Music Composition. She holds a Master’s degree from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors in Music from Montclair State University. Camila has been a composition fellow at the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the New Music on the Point Festival, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, and most recently at the American Academy in Berlin. A recipient of the Randolph S. Rothschild Scholarship, Camila has also received awards from the Marshall M. Williams Endowment, Isobel and Tom Rolston Fellowship in Music Endowment, Diversity Provost Fellowship, Repsol Emerging Artist Award, and the Sorel Organization.