Born in Ecuador, Chía Patiño was the artistic and executive director of the National Theatre in Ecuador for 10 years before joining the Butler School of Music in 2019 as stage director for Butler Opera Center. Her path has been eclectic: she began as a pianist, continued as a composer, and began a parallel path as a stage director in 1998. She has staged zarzuela, musical theater, theater, and opera for companies in the United States, Arab Emirates, Egypt, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador.

Productions she has directed include: Tosca, Traviata, Transformations, Rusalka, Dido and Aeneas, Carmen, Sweeney Todd, Luis Fernanda, West Side Story, Les Miserables, La Flauta Mágica de Los Andes, Faust, and Don Giovanni. In 2009, she was the music director of the mariachi opera commissioned and produced by Houston Grand Opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna.

Patiño was the stage director of Suite Española, Explorando Iberia, for Houston Grand Opera in their project HGO Digital, a program sponsored by Sarah and Ernest Butler. She also provided dramaturgy for Dreaming/Undreaming for the Princeton Festival. Most recently, Patiño directed Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for Seattle Opera in January 2022, and Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas for Opera de Tenerife in March.