Catalina Rueda was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1989, grew up in Cali and has lived in Hamburg since 2011. She completed her bachelor's degree in composition and music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Manfred Stahnke and her master's degree in composition at the same university with Gordon Kampe. In addition to her compositional work, she also devotes herself to improvisation and performance with piano and voice.

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Influenced by jazz, folk and dance music, their musical language unfolds in acoustic space, embedded in sequential harmony that never tires of creating new contexts for melody and tonality.

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She works regularly with ensembles such as Ensemble KNM Berlin, Asian Art Ensemble, Lux Nova Duo, Mirror Strings, Kölner Vokalsolisten, Trobar e Cantar, Theaterorchester Aachen, Duisburg Philharmonic, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Phoenix Ensemble Munich and Ensemble I transiti. Interdisciplinary collaborations with directors such as Mien Bogaert, Pia-Rabea Vornholt, Thorsten Cölle, Annett Stenzel, Josef Bairlein and Lisa Pottstock. Her music has been performed at several festivals, including KNM Contemporaries, Blurred Edges, Neue Musik in Husum, and the Acht Brücken Festival in Cologne.

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Her music was awarded the Eight Bridges Festival Prize, and together with the librettist Lisa Pottstock she won the Music Theater Prize of the Reinhold Otto Mayer Foundation.