Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombian pianist Juan Francisco Camacho has given numerous solo and collaborative recitals in major cities across Colombia, including Bogotá, Medellín, Armenia, and Tunja. Recent performances in the U.S. include appearances at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield, the Hoogland Center for the Arts, the UIS Visual Arts Gallery, the UIS Performing Arts Center, and Smith Memorial Hall at the University of Illinois. He has also performed for several semesters with Concerto Urbano, the early music ensemble at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2023, he served as the collaborative pianist in Springfield, Illinois, for Violins of Hope, an acclaimed international project that restores and showcases violins played Jewish musicians during the Holocaust, preserving their stories through music.

Mr. Camacho was selected to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 13 in C Major at the Fabio Lozano Auditorium of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University and at the prestigious León de Greiff Hall. Additionally, he has performed Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1057 and Handel’s Organ Concerto Op. 4 No. 5 as a soloist with the Camerata Olav Roots. As faculty, he was one of the soloists with UISO and performed in 2022 for the Love Is in the Air concert.

An advocate for contemporary music, Mr. Camacho has collaborated with Italian-Colombian composer Mauricio Nasi Lignarolo, premiering his Toccata No. 30 for Celesta, Harp, and Cembalo and Toccata No. 27 for Piano and Harp at the National University of Colombia, performing on celesta and piano respectively. In the Spring of 2025, he was a finalist in the concerto competition at UIUC with Nasi’s Fantasía Romántica Op. 15

In 2020, as a recipient of the Ross Fellowship, Mr. Camacho began his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois, studying under Professor Timothy Ehlen. He holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance from Missouri State University, where he studied with Professor Hye-Jung Hong, and a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from the Conservatory of the National University of Colombia under Professor Juan Pablo Luna. He has participated in masterclasses with pianists such as Pascal Rogé, Boaz Sharon, and Ian Hobson. At Missouri State University, he received both the Keyboard Performance and Keyboard Governors Awards.

Since 2021, he has been a Piano Instructor at the University of Illinois at Springfield. His recent work focuses on historical improvisation and the pedagogy of harmony, particularly as it is learned and experienced through the instrument. He has studied partimento and schemata-based improvisation through individual lessons with Tobias Cramm (2022–2023) and continues private study in Baroque improvisation with Nicola Canzano (2023–present). Mr. Camacho is currently developing a new introductory harmony curriculum for classical undergraduate piano students. This curriculum is designed to help students internalize harmonic progressions and contrapuntal structures through the lens of schemata, drawing from sources such as Giacomo Insanguine’s partimenti, Handel’s figured bass exercises, Dandrieu’s Principes de l’Accompagnement du Clavecin, and contemporary research Gjerdingen, IJzerman, Canzano, and Mortensen.