Chía Patiño began as a pianist and composer at the University of Louisville. In 1998 she composed Dreamwalker, a one-act opera that premiered in Bloomington at Indiana University.

Recently she directed Don Giovanni for the Aspen Music Festival, Florencia en el Amazonas for Opera Tenerife, Orpheus & Eurydice for Seattle Opera, Suite Española: Exploring Iberia and Exploring the Caribbean for Houston Grand Opera, La Cenerentola and Tosca for Northern Lights Music Festival, and Don Giovanni for Butler Opera Center as well as her own adaptation of the Magic Flute using the Andean cosmovision: La Flauta Mágica de los Andes. Additional original works include Faust, Traviata, Hansel and Gretel, Rusalka, Dido and Aeneas, Carmen, Cossi Fan Tutti, Transformations, Le Nozze di Figaro, Luisa Fernanda, Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Spring Awakening and Los Miserables. Her work has been produced in the United States, Spain, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

She conducted, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, the opera mariachi commissioned by HGO in 2009 conducting the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitán at the Chatelêt Theater in Paris, Arizona, Phoenix, San Diego, El Paso, Fort Worth, Chicago, and El Paso. She also conducted its choral world premiere at the Teatro Nacional Sucre in Quito in Ecuador.

Between 2009-2019 she was the Artistic and Executive Director of the Teatro Nacional Sucre in Ecuador, and until recently she was the stage director at the Butler Opera Center in Austin. She is currently in the roaster of ADA Artist Management.

I believe in music and I believe in art. I believe the true essence of humanity communicates through that invisible, untouchable product. It shows us at our best and at our worst, because humanity has many sides. Nobody and nothing can control our feelings: through art we perceive as big a scope of things as we allow ourselves. The good, the bad, the allowed and the forbidden: and that makes art dangerous.

At its best we will find music, poetry or paintings that make us laugh or cry, that reminds us of friends and family, our first love, heartbreak or loosing a loved one; trough art most of the memories that build us are engraved forever. At its worst it makes us conscious or remind us of the things that we are afraid of.

Music and art is a feeling: it can not be erased or cut. It passes frontiers such as censorship. Though many artists and their work have been forbidden trough history- what they wanted to say survived trough their art.

I believe in the intimacy of spaces to allow people to be fragile again: I have directed three different spaces in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and I have witnessed over five thousand spectacles over the last ten years. I saw the audience engrossed in feeling, and feeling is a luxury in our time: publicity and marketing do their best to manipulate us and our feelings get in their way. In the intimacy of a theatre, when the lights go off, and we feel safe and nobody judges or pushes, we will reconnect with our essence.

As a Stage Director, I need to be clear to communicate what I want to say: honesty is imperative. My Luisa Fernanda was a love story were the main character chooses the wrong lover – and many of us can relate to that. Faust is unable to perceive that he is dealing with the devil, and thus gets seduce by power and the idea of being young again. My Les Miserables was updated to current times were we still find students in the frontline of the revolution against corrupted power. Venezuela is a painful reminder at present time of this, and it is important to remember and know that we can resist.

La Flauta Magica de los Andes (The Maglic Flute) seen trough the Andean cosmovision. It showed me pure simple and ancient values: as strength, valour and justice. Their importance cuts trough any timeline. In our production the children that “did not know how to behave in opera”: they talk to Papageno on stage as if it was a puppet show- which it was: we used over one hundred puppets. I think Mozart would have loved it. Magic happened in our Flute. Art makes us pure and we react in a natural way, like children.

I belive in opera that is not for the elite, but the original form: sometimes it is just wants to entertain and sometimes it needs to denounce. But it should always have something to say and share. And here is the magic: the artists will aim to say one thing, but the audience will perceive what they need to perceive.

For ten years I created those moments for the audience. I feel proud of what I have directed. But I think it is now time to focus on the root of art and its creators: the students and apprentices. They will generate the new product. It needs to have a valid voice and be aware of our time. I am looking forward to pass on what I’ve learnt, to teach young stage directors and singers to be aware of their time and surroundings. To conceive art with a reason other then money. To yearn to communicate and respect their audience and times. As a Stage Director, my favorite part has always been the rehearsals: everyone rowing in the same direction not always knowing the goat. Magic. Prepearing the next generation is exciting.

Though I know I still have much to say, I believe it is extremely important to prepare the future voices, as they will be facing very complicated times: a time were the system is numbing everyone. Keeping strong and honest voices is urgent.

Quito, JuIy 6, 2019