In the same year, she recorded the first album of duo project Renato Diz | Maria Quintanilla at Daniel Concert Hall in Los Angeles,[4] with multi Estonian Music Awards winning engineer José Diogo Neves, entitled "Distance Chemistry", released on New York-based label W&J Productions.
Collectively they composed several chamber pieces inspired by the stories of aboriginal tribes and Taiwanese traditions, this work culminated in an album recording at Tedesco Studios entitled "Breathing Taiwan" (on W&J Productions).
[8] In 2017 Maria Alejandra was endowed the Thayer Fellowship in Arts for Excellence, Creativity and Talent (this exclusive award is given to only 3 individuals amongst 500,000 students from all Colleges of State University Of New York).
Also, her duo with Renato Diz was commissioned to create a special work honoring the History of Portugal by ARTE Institute, Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Fundação Luso Americana.
Since the beginning of her musical career, she has had the opportunity to perform on some of the most important stages and festivals in Europe, North and South America with names like Jon Faddis, John Benitez, Steve Turre, Tia Fuller,[19] David Kikowski, Kyioshi Kitagawa, Marvin Sewell, Jeff Haynes, Mark Peterson, Steve Gluzband,[20] Melvin Lee Davis, Todd Coolman, John Abercrombie, Pete Malinverni and Ingrid Jensen among many others.