Pat plays UPRIGHT AND ELECTRIC BASS
Patrick Swoboda is a Brooklyn-based bass player active across musical worlds. Dedicated to performing the works of living composers, Pat has worked closely with Michael Gordon, Du Yun, David Lang, Sarah Hennies, 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. Pat is a member of chamber orchestras Contemporaneous and Hotel Elefant, and has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, and many other vital groups. Also an accomplished orchestral musician, Pat has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Riverside Symphony, and New York Pops Orchestra. On Broadway, Pat has performed in the pits for Les Miserable, Paramour, The Nance, and A Christmas Story. Pat is a two time Bang on a Can Summer Institute fellow as well as a two time OneBeat fellow.
Pat plays bass for BEARTHOVEN
Bearthoven [ \'bâr-toh-vən\ ] is a piano trio creating a new repertoire for a familiar instrumentation by commissioning works from leading young composers. Karl Larson (piano), Pat Swoboda (bass), and Matt Evans (percussion) have combined their individual voices and diverse musical backgrounds, coming together to create a versatile trio focused on frequent and innovative commissioning of up-and-coming composers. Bearthoven is rapidly building a diverse repertoire by challenging composers to apply their own voice to an instrumentation that, while common amongst jazz and pop idioms, is currently foreign in the contemporary classical world.
Pat plays bass for LADAMA
LADAMA is an ensemble of women musicians (and me) from across the Americas who, as well as performing as a touring band, strive to engage youth in their respective communities in the process of music-making, dancing, composition and audio production through collaboration and performance workshops. They are Mafer Bandola (bandola llanera), Lara Klaus (percussion, drums), Daniela Serna (percussion) and Sara Lucas (voice, guitar) and me, Pat Swoboda (upright and electric bass). Together they combine the rhythms and traditional instrumentation of frevo and maracatu from Pernambuco, Brazil; joropo songs from the high plains of Venezuela; cumbia, gaita and champeta from the Colombian coast and contemporary strains of American pop, rock and jazz. Members of LADAMA specialize in, among other instruments, the bandola llanera from Venezuela, the tambor alegre from Colombia, and the pandeiro and zabumba from Northeast Brazil. Their performances include original compositions and traditional songs sung in Spanish, Portuguese and English combining disparate elements into a cohesive whole. The result is a sonic experience through which we can view our future as a world that communicates across continents and cultures, with sound and story.
Pat plays bass for GUTBUCKET
What happens when you take four highly opinionated, strong-willed and creative composer/musicians and put them in a band together? You might have a volatile problem on your hands…or else you have Gutbucket. The nineteen year-old Brooklyn-based quartet continues to push composer-driven, art-rock-tainted chamber jazz into new terrain and boldly proclaim its voice.The band was formed in 1999 by two of its current four members just out of college: Ty Citerman (electric guitar) and Ken Thomson (saxophone). Adam D Gold (drums) would arrive in 2007, and Pat Swoboda (bass) has been in the group since 2012.