Patrick Swoboda is a bassist living and performing in New York City. Originally from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, he holds both a BM and an MM from NYU's Steinhardt School.  Comfortable on both upright and electric in any style or genre, Swoboda’s musical life is quite diverse.  Beginning his bass studies at the age of 12, Swoboda was an avid jazz player growing up, winning the Outstanding Musicianship Award at the 2006 Berklee College of Music High School Jazz Festival, an award given to three players out of a field of thousands.  Upon starting his higher education, Swoboda shifted his focus towards a more classically oriented training. At NYU, he studied with Joseph Bongiorno, renowned performer and teacher, and former student of Homer Mensch. Swoboda is an avid proponent of contemporary music and strives to draw on his diverse musical experiences to be an open and willing performer and collaborator.  

Patrick Swoboda is a member of the punk-jazz quartet Gutbucket  alongside members Ken Thomson, Ty Citerman and Adam Gold. Swoboda and Gutbucket are excited to announce a new record Dance, recorded live at The Stone in NYC, will be released in January of 2016.  Swoboda is also a founding member of the new music trio, Bearthoven. Formed at the Bang on a Can Festival at Mass MoCA (where Swoboda has twice been a Robert Black Bass Fellow), Bearthoven is committed to engaging with focused, young composers and presenting music for this largely contextually unexplored instrumentation. In Bearthoven's short lifespan the trio has been featured on the Bang on a Can Marathon, the MATA Festival, the Minot Modern Festival, BSGU's Music at the Front and the CNX New Music Exchange. Swoboda also holds the position of upright and electric bassist for Contemporaneous, a New York based contemporary chamber orchestra and newly minted and aptly named septet, Exceptet.  

An ardent orchestral player, Swoboda has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, the New York Pops Orchestra and the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra. With the ASO, Swoboda appears as principal double bass at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space and the Fisher Center at Bard College.  Furthermore, Swoboda is an accomplished soloist, notably having premiered Lars Graugaard's Venus for solo violin, solo double bass, orchestra and electronics along side Patti Kilroy and the NYU Symphony, performed Chris Cerrone's High Windows with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn and premiered Du Yun's The Man Who Swallowed a Snake at the 2015 MATA Festival.

Also an accomplished musical pit player, Swoboda is a regular sub for Les Misérables on Broadway and has performed number of other Broadway shows including the original run of A Christmas Story at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater and the run of The Nance at the Lyceum Theater.  Swoboda also works as the music librarian for the New York Youth Symphony.