Hugo Alexander Cruz Machado is a Cuban-born, award-winning, drummer and composer who has performed internationally, including South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, and the United States. Hugo is the leader of the jazz fusion music group Caminos, who have made appearances at Fábrica de Artes in Havana, Cuba, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival 2019, Carnegie Museum of Art, City of Asylum, Thunderbird Cafe and Music Hall, Westylvania Jazz and Blues Festival, and the Monroeville Jazz Festival, among many others.

Caminos fuse rhythms and melodies of Afro-Cuban, Cuban, jazz, funk, and R&B music styles, in an original contemporary expression that honors traditional Cuban form.

In February 2022, Hugo Cruz released his first original album, Punto de Partida, with the group Caminos, featuring notable musicians from Cuba and the U.S.

In May 2022, Caminos were the Jazz headliner for the Westsylvania Jazz and Blues Festival in Indiana, PA.

From December 2022 through August 2024, Caminos hosted a lively monthly concert series called The Voice of Drums at Kingfly Spirits, which featured mostly Pittsburgh-based drummers and musicians spanning genres and cultures to join Caminos in a fresh and original expression of each other’s music.

While a resident of Cuba, Hugo toured regularly with Síntesis, a leading Afro-Cuban 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 Superior de Artes, the leading university for the arts 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, including: La Trovuntivitis, Tony Guzmán y Su Poder Latino, Síntesis, Janio Abreu y Aire de Concierto, Adrian Berazain, Interactivo, Zule Guerra, Alberto Lescay y Formas, La Academia de Ruy López Nussa, Silvio Rodriguez, Amaury Perez, Banda de Concierto Municipal de La Habana, Grupo Interactivo, Julito Padron, William Vivanco and Mayco de Alma. Hugo performs and records with notable Pittsburgh artists, including Afro Yaqui Music Collective, Dr. James Johnson, Roger Humphries, Ernest McCarty Jr, Tubby Daniels, Dwayne Dolphin, Mark Strickland, Poogie Bell, Lou Stelute, Max Leake, Jeff Grubbs, Paul Thomson, Marty Ashby, Make Tomaro, Kenny Blake. Hugo also had performed at the Heinz Hall as a special guest of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Cruz is a drum teacher at the Afro-American Music Institute. He has been teaching workshops as a special guest at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Hope Academy Orchestra, and several youth and cultural organizations throughout the city.