2025-26 Visiting Artists in Residence

Mexican born vibraphonist, marimbist, improviser and composer Patricia Brennan “has been widely feted as one of the instrument’s newer leaders,” observed The New York City Jazz Record. Patricia has won the rising star vibraphonist award from Downbeat magazine’s 70th (2022) and 72nd (2024) Critics Poll and was listed #4 vibraphonist of the year on the 71st (2023) & 72nd (2024) Critics Poll. Patricia was also recently named winner of the 2025 Vibraphonist of the Year award on the 73rd Annual Downbeat Critics Poll.

Patricia inherited a deep love and appreciation for musical tradition from both parents, as well as being exposed to the musical richness of her native Port of Veracruz in Mexico. She started studying music at 4 years old, playing Latin percussion along salsa records with her father and listening to Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin records with her mother. Also, around the same age, she started playing piano, influenced by her grandmother who was a concert pianist. 

At the age of 17, Patricia was selected from musicians all over the Americas to be part of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. During this time, she toured every country in the Americas and performed with renowned musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma and Paquito D’Rivera. Before moving to the U. S., Patricia was already performing with the top symphony orchestras in Mexico, such as Xalapa Symphony Orchestra and Minería Symphony Orchestra. Also, she had already won several awards on marimba competitions and young artist competitions in Mexico and abroad and was featured in the “Líderes Mexicanos” magazine in 2003. In 2004, she was accepted at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was able to perform alongside high caliber musicians from all over the world and conductors such as Simon Rattle and Charles Dutoit. She also performed with the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra and other acclaimed new music groups such as members from Eight Blackbird.

Patricia's search for freedom in her musical expression led her to find her voice through the vibraphone and mallet percussion in improvisational music and composition. 

Patricia has performed in venues such as Newport Jazz Festival, SF JAZZ, and Carnegie Hall, as well as international venues such as Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has also appeared on National Television, Public Radio, and the BBC radio show “Freeness” hosted by Corey Mwamba.

Patricia Brennan is a Valley of Search artist, Pyroclastic Records artist, BlueHaus Mallets artist, and Audeze artist.  Patricia is currently faculty at the Jazz Arts program at Manhattan School of Music, the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and at the Jazz Studies program at NYU Steinhardt.

The Pro Arte Quartet (PAQ) is one of the world’s most distinguished string quartets. Founded by conservatory students in Brussels in 1912, it became one of the most celebrated ensembles in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century and in 1932 was named Court Quartet to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Its world reputation blossomed in 1919 when the quartet began the first of many tours that enticed notable composers such as Milhaud, Honegger, Martin, and Casella to write new works for the ensemble. Bartók dedicated his fourth quartet to the PAQ (1927), and in 1936 PAQ premiered Barber’s Op. 11 quartet, with the now-famous Adagio for Strings as its slow movement.

The Pro Arte made its New York debut in 1926 and toured the United States frequently under the auspices of patroness Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. The quartet was performing in Madison, Wisconsin in May 1940 when Nazi forces invaded Belgium. The University of Wisconsin responded to the emergency by offering the quartet a permanent campus home, the first such arrangement at a major American university. The UW Pro Arte residency became a model of artist residencies, and one now widely emulated throughout the country.

As the first and only quartet ever to reach its centennial anniversary (2012), the Pro Arte’s 100th birthday was the occasion for a grand multi-year celebration. At its center was the commission of six new works by some of today’s most important composers: William Bolcom, Paul Schoenfield, John Harbison, Walter Mays, and Pierre Jalbert (United States), along with Benoît Mernier from Belgium. Other initiatives included a lecture series, museum exhibits, recordings on the Albany label, a video documentary broadcast on Wisconsin Public Television and available on DVD, a concert tour to Belgium, and an engaging book on the storied history of this illustrious quartet (Boydell & Brewer, 2017).

The Pro Arte Quartet performs throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia and continues to champion both standard repertoire and new music. The group is ensemble- in-residence at the UW-Madison School of Music and resident quartet of the Chazen Museum of Art, performing regularly on the concert series of both institutions. The quartet has performed at the White House and, during the centennial celebration, played for the King’s Counselor in Belgium. Notable projects include the complete quartets of Bartók and Shostakovich and, in collaboration with the Orion and Emerson String Quartets, the complete quartets of Beethoven. Regular chamber music collaborators include Samuel Rhodes, viola; Bonnie Hampton, cello; and Leon Fleischer and Christopher Taylor, piano. Current PAQ members, together since 1995, are David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violin; Sally Chisholm, viola; and Parry Karp, cello. Together, they have recorded works of Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Rhodes, Shapey, Sessions, Fennelly, Diesendruck, and the centennial commissions.