Patrick Castillo profile picture

Patrick Castillo

...

About Me

Composer, vocalist, writer, and producer Patrick Castillo has garnered the esteem of musicians, audiences, and leading arts figures throughout the classical music community. His accomplishments as a composer have been recognized by numerous commissions and awards including the W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts. He has also been the recipient of the Brian M. Israel Prize, awarded by the Society for New Music for his chamber work "Lola."
The 2006-07 concert season featured the world premieres of "Evocation," for chorus and cello, by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble; and "Cirque," for solo violin, by New World Symphony violinist Piotr Szewczyk. Other recent highlights include premiere performances of Patrick Castillo's chamber works by Anti-Social Music (New York), the Interlochen Chamber Players (Interlochen, MI), the Society for New Music (Syracuse, NY), and the Pharos Music Project (New York).
A number of recent commissions have established Patrick Castillo as an important figure in New York's contemporary vocal music community. The 2005-06 season saw the premiere of "Two Songs for Christmas Eve," commissioned by the Canticum Novum Singers and representing the first commission awarded in that ensemble's 33-year history. In addition, the Manhattan Choral Ensemble selected Patrick Castillo as one of three composers for its 2006 New Music for New York commissioning project. The resultant work, "A Piece of Coffee," met with enthusiastic acclaim and led to the MCE's commission of "Evocation" the following season. Patrick Castillo's choral music has also been performed in recent seasons by the Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble and the New York Virtuoso Singers. Highlights of the 2007-08 season include the world premiere of "This is the hour of lead" for baritone/countertenor and chamber ensemble, commissioned by New York City vocal artist Phillip Cheah.
In 2005, with composers Martha Sullivan and James Blachly, Patrick Castillo founded the Pharos Music Project, a collective of composers and performers dedicated to the presentation of new vocal and chamber music. Patrick Castillo also serves concurrently as Artistic Administrator for ArtistLed, classical music's first musician-directed, Internet-based recording company, and Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this latter capacity, Patrick Castillo has authored, narrated, and produced the widely acclaimed AudioNotes series of CD-listeners' guides to the chamber music literature. San Francisco Classical Voice has said of this series: "The quality of these CDs--their sound, commentary, music and performers--deserve a separate category in the classical Grammy Awards. AudioNotes engage the concertgoer's senses, brain, and heart, so that the spirit of music can come through." Patrick Castillo has penned and produced AudioNotes for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, for whom he has also given pre-concert lectures.
Patrick Castillo holds a B.A. in music composition and sociology from Vassar College, where his teachers included Lois V. Vierk, Annea Lockwood, and Richard Wilson. He has also participated in master classes with John Harbison, Alvin Lucier, Roger Reynolds, and Charles Wuorinen. While at Vassar, Patrick Castillo served as composer-in-residence for the Mahagonny Ensemble, a collective of performers specializing in twentieth-century music. His "Requiem aeternam" for mixed chorus and chamber ensemble, composed for the Mahagonny, was awarded the 2001 Jean Slater Edson Prize.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 2/23/2007
Band Website: patrickcastillo.com
Influences:
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: None

My Blog

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The Yankees entered play today 12 games over .500.Here's what I'm doing right now....
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:16:00 PST

rp no 1

rp no 1 is a sneak preview of what's rattling in the pipes.LIMITED TIME OFFER: Let's say the track will be available for free download via myspace.com until the 100,000th download or the New York Yank...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:14:00 PST

Nabokov and the artist’s prerogative

"The Original of Laura" is to be published.I'm curious to know what people think about this. I find it outrageous, but am open to hearing persuasive arguments to the contrary.In Nabokov's own words......
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Mon, 05 May 2008 06:57:00 PST

Blogoroditse devo

All my life, I've wondered whether they were laughing with me or laughing at me. I found out today that Adrienne's been quoting me in her blog. I'm still not sure. But apparently, I'm a paranoid, opin...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Fri, 02 May 2008 09:15:00 PST

My dirty little musical secret

http://www.patrickcastillo.com/Nov5.htm...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:03:00 PST

First movement of "This is the Hour of Lead" re-posted

The first movement of my cantata is back up on my page. Please listen. That is all.
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:39:00 PST

To hear and not to hear

First movement of the cantata is in the garage for a little bit. In the meantime, following a ravishing Turangalila Symphonie last night, courtesy of David Robertson and his band from St. Louis: the C...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:36:00 PST

"This is the Hour of Lead"

I've just posted the world premiere recording of my cantata, "This is the Hour of Lead." (Each movement appears as a separate song.) The work was commissioned by Phillip Cheah and received its premier...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:01:00 PST

Point/Counterpoint

Is dialogue actually being generated on the Internet?Bernard Holland's recent NYT piece, The Audience as Arbiter, has drawn some choice words from the new music community, including a fine response fr...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:27:00 PST

Passing more forward

Tip of the iceberg here...Forecast Music does their thing (works by John Cage, Robert Paterson, my sometime accomplice Eric Schwartz, et al.) tomorrow (Friday) evening at the Brooklyn Conservatory, 8:...
Posted by Patrick Castillo on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:20:00 PST