About

Patricio da Silva


Career Highlights


In 2017, “Schlinkepuetz - eine Monsteroper”, a theater production for children with music by Patricio “met the laughing-nerve of the audience with pinpoint precision. Great opera, of course“, said the German critic, Matthias Boll, Nürnberger Nachrichten. It has been performed numerous times since then always to the most enthusiastic audience receptions.

In 2016, Patricio da Silva’s “Music for Violin and Harp” was selected to represent the American Harp Society with the Crimson Duo at the International Harp Conference in Hong Kong.

Since 2011, Patricio da Silva’s Guitar Concerto has been featured several times on the syndicated radio show Classical Guitar Alive, and each time broadcast on over 250 classical music stations around the world.

In 2009, Patricio da Silva was honored to have his work “Three Pieces for Solo Piano” performed by Tzimon Barto during the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, in a benefit concert with Maestro Christoph Eschenbach for the acquisition of the manuscript of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations by the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, Germany.

In 2008, Patricio da Silva was awarded the II International Barto Prize (juried by Tobias Picker, composer, USA, Tzimon Barto, pianist, USA, Wolfgang Rihm, composer, Germany, Bright Cheng, composer, China and USA, and Marc-André Dalbavie, composer, France) for his work "Three Movements for Solo Piano".

In 2003, Patricio da Silva's work for 4 mechanical pianos won the Ojai Music Festival Prize for young composers among candidates from all the major universities in California, a competition juried by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Ernest Fleischmann, the LA Phil's legendary Executive Director.

Festivals and concert halls where Patricio da Silva’s music has been performed include, among others, Tanglewood, Ravinia, The Ojai Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival in the USA, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Bayerischen Theatertage, Stadttheater Fürth, Ruhr Festival, Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal, Stadttheater Wels, Fruchthalle in Kaiserslautern (Germany), London Festival of American Music (UK), LACMA (Los Angeles), Auditorio de Galicia (Spain), and Cistermúsica.


Awards and Grants


Awards include the Second Biennial International Barto Prize, Gould Family Foundation Composers Award, Ojai Festival Music for Tomorrow, Foundation of Science and Technology, Fundação Luso-Americana, Betty Freeman Foundation, Merril Lynch, American Music Center, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer.


Commissions and Residencies


Stadttheater Fürth, Ojai Music Festival, American Harp Society, Piano Spheres, Cistermusica Festival, David Gutkin, Joao Camilo dos Santos, Berkeley Symphony, Macdowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Otto Eckstein Foundation, Norton Stevens Foundation, Ford Schumann Foundation.


Performers


Performers of Patricio da Silva's works include The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (Composer in Residence 2008-10), California Ear-Unit, Lontano, Lyris Quartet, The Memphis Symphony Orchestra, The Moscow Piano Quartet, New Fromm Players, Orquestra do Algarve, Shakespeare & Co., What's Next? Ensemble, Stefan Asbury, Jens Barnieck, Tzimon Barto, Ryu Cipris, Gloria Cheng, Joana Carneiro, Cesário Costa, William Eddins, Lorenz Gamma, David Gutkin, Paul Haas, Vimbayi Kaziboni, Michael Kudirka, David Loebel, Julia Oesch, Yevgeniy Milavskiy, Brian Pezzone, José Rodilla, Mark Robson, Tara Schwab, Ming Tsu, Laurent Wagner and Ian Whitcomb.


Education


Patrício da Silva received formal musical training at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa where he studied piano and composition (B.M. in piano), followed by composition studies in the USA at CalArts (MFA), and the University of California (Ph.D.). His composition teachers include António Pinho Vargas, Mel Powel, Stephen L. Mosko, Morton Subotnick, William Kraft, David Cope, Curtis Roads, Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, and Sydney Hodkinson. Seminars with Helmuth Lachenmann, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Milton Babbitt. Doctoral research at UC Santa Cruz with David Cope and post-doctoral work in Algorithmic Composition, and Music with Artificial Intelligence at Ircam in Paris.