Born in Ecuador, Chía Patiño’s path has been eclectic: she began as a pianist, continued as a composer, and began a parallel path as a stage director in 1998. For ten years she staged Zarzuela, Musical Theatre, Theatre, and Opera for numerous companies in the United States, Arab Emirates, Egypt, Guatemala, Colombia and Ecuador. In 2009, she became the Artistic and Executive Director of the National Theatre in Ecuador and in 2019 she returned to the USA to join the Butler School of Music as an Associate Professor and the Stage Director for the Butler Opera Center in Austin, TX.

Among her recent opera productions are Tosca, La Flauta Mágica de Los Andes, Faust, Don Giovanni, Transformations, Rusalka, Dido and Aeneas, Carmen, and La Traviata. She has also directed Les Miserables, Spring Awakening, West Side Story, and Sweeney Todd, as well as Luisa Fernanda. She was the music director for Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, the mariachi opera commissioned and produced by Houston Grand Opera, which she subsequently performed in Paris, San Diego, Phoenix, Fort Worth, El Paso, Chicago and Houston, as well as the world premiere of the choral version in Quito, Ecuador. Upcoming engagements include directing Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for Seattle Opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna for the Butler Opera Center, and Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas for Opera de Tenerife.