ABOUT
Patrick Swoboda is a NYC-based bass player dedicated to performing the works of living composers, and has worked closely with Michael Gordon, Du Yun, David Lang, and Scott Wollschleger. Recent highlights include performing and recording David Lang’s powerful and introspective opera The Loser with Bang on a Can and LA Opera, premiering and touring Michael Gordon’s Mixed Tulips with Bearthoven and appearing on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk concert series with LADAMA. As a founding member of the trio Bearthoven, Swoboda engages this generation of composers to commission and present music for bass, piano, and percussion in largely unexplored new contexts. Formed at the Bang on a Can Festival at Mass MoCA in 2013, Bearthoven has premiered over 40 pieces since its founding. Bearthoven’s 2019-20 season features a world premiere commission from Michael Gordon and a new work by Shelley Washington. Bearthoven's followed up their debut record Trios with 2018’s American Dream featuring the music of Scott Wollschleger. Swoboda has held the position of upright and electric bassist for NYC-based contemporary chamber orchestra Contemporaneous since 2012, and has performed with the group at the Bard Music Festival, the 2015 Bang on a Can Marathon and New Amsterdam Presents at National Sawdust. A frequent collaborator, Swoboda has performed with Ensemble Signal, Ensemble Echappe, Tigue, Dither, the Slee Sinfonietta, Hotel Elefant, Exceptet, the Dogs of Desire along with many other exciting ensembles.
Comfortable in a wide range of genres, Swoboda is a member of the punk-jazz quartet Gutbucket alongside Ken Thomson, Ty Citerman and Adam Gold. Gutbucket released Dance in 2016, an album of new original material recorded live at The Stone in NYC, and toured extensively behind the record in both Europe and North America. Swoboda is a creative collaborator in the group, contributing compositions to the band's unique and expansive repertoire. In years past, Swoboda participated as a fellow in both OneBeat's 2015 residency and tour on the west coast and OneBeat Istanbul. OneBeat is a program which employs collaborative original music as a potent new form of cultural diplomacy. Throughout each of these experiences Swoboda collaborated with musicians from around the world in creating and performing new cross-genre works as well as engaging in outreach programs with surrounding schools and communities. In 2016, Swoboda was very happy to join fellow OneBeat alumni in the LADAMA, a performing and educational ensemble of four women from across the Americas who have come together to address gender equality issues in all aspects of music education, business, and performance. Ladama's debut, self-titled album has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered, Heavy Rotation, and Tiny Desk Concerts, and reached the top of both iTunes and Amazon's Latin charts. In the summers of 2013-14 Swoboda was a Robert Black bass fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival.
An accomplished orchestral player, Swoboda has performed with the Albany Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, the New York Pops Orchestra, the Riverside Symphony, the Bard Music Festival Orchestra and the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra. With the ASO, Swoboda has appeared as principal double bass at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space and the Fisher Center at Bard College. Swoboda was a regular sub for Les Misérables on Broadway and has performed number of other Broadway shows including A Christmas Story, Paramour, and The Nance.
After joining LADAMA, Swoboda began extensive touring across three continents. During that time he began to photograph the world around him. Certainly not a trained photographer, Swoboda takes minimalist architectural and landscape photos that attempt to capture surprising patterns and images that, despite being a fraction of a larger scene, contain a multitude within them.
Originally from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, Swoboda holds both a BM and an MM from NYU's Steinhardt School where he studied with Joseph Bongiorno.