What’s your fondest memory of the School of Music? I remember the first day I walked into the Music Library, I was overwhelmed! Back home in Ecuador there were maybe three of four books on composition, but at the School of Music I was able to access so many scores, courtesy of the Grawemeyer collection. The library staff were extremely supportive, and I would go in and just listen to recordings-it blew my mind. The idea of a “practice room”, a solitary space to do nothing but practice, also blew my mind. In Ecuador, there are no such things as practice rooms. Mrs. Keyes taught me how to listen to sounds. My first year I studied with Claude Baker (former Professor of Composition, UofL, and Indiana University), who was instrumental in my early success and subsequent admission to Indiana University. We were literally starving artistically, and now I realize that the faculty identified that passion in me. For my senior recital I was able to utilize almost 85% of the students in the School of Music as dancers and instrumentalists; the intimate size and nature of the school and faculty were so supportive.

Tell us about your unique journey from position to stage direction to opera. Composition is a very lonely thing. Early on, composers believed in  sturm und drang, (a German phrase meaning “storm and stress”, referring to a literary movement of the 18th century), and my music was not like that. Composition drives you into this vortex. Now that I’m mature I feel in a healthier mental place, I really have something to say so I may come back to it. While at Bloomington, I decided to write an opera. I took a play writing class and every theater production class, movement and direction, so I could understand what makes for good theater. That is how it started…

You were Director of the National Theater of Ecuador for a decade, you’ve been invited to guest stage direct at the Aspen Music Festival, and around the world. In 2024 you were invited to join the music faculty at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. At the UofM you mentor young, emerging singers, trying to find their voice. What’s your advice to young musicians today?

Today people are writing music on their computers, via a program, and not with their ears. if you’re writing in a library you cannot be writing with your heart. In Louisville I learned how to write sounds down and actually imagine them, hear them… it has to be intimate: between a composer and his/her imagination. (big warning into writing on a computer program that plays back immediately…) Young students may feel free, but they are limited by the computer program, instead of embracing their vision. Read! Explore! Go to a museum! Consume all the art you can! Claude Baker, Fred Fox and Eugene O’Brien would give me lists of books, plays and poetry to read. I loved that! I was pushed to discover and expand!  Decide what makes you happy as a musician, because we have our emotions so raw and out of control, especially when we’re young. Hang on and don’t panic. If music makes you happy, find the way to make a living out of it, but keep an eye for doors that may open where you don’t expect them.

“Sometimes you help with time, sometimes you help with money, other times you just sit down with the students and figure it out.”– Chia Patiño