Where Sound Meets Freedom: A Conversation with Simone Seales

Where Sound Meets Freedom: A Conversation with Simone Seales

“My life feels like an entire improvisation,” says Simone Seales, Glasgow-based cellist and performance artist.


Their approach to music has evolved far beyond traditional classical constraints into something more emotionally direct: “I just would improvise to express any feeling I had. I feel anxious – improv. I’m in love – improv. I am sad – improv.

This freedom was hard-won. Following early recognition at the Sphinx Performance Academy for Black and Latino String Players, where “it was one of those moments when you’re a kid and you’re doing something and you see the teacher look at you and be like, ‘oh,’ that you sort of know, you get it,” Seales entered the demanding world of classical training. Years of “rigorous, like, six hours a day practicing” followed, until burnout led them to Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

“It really was open in its approach to everything in the Masters,” they explain. “It was the first place where there was improv classes. I was like, what? They’re actually promoting improvisation.” A masterclass proved transformative when a Spanish drummer challenged them: “She kept saying, okay, don’t think. Just feel and play. Don’t think about technique. Just go.” The experience triggered “a really big, probably, like, emotional breakdown, like, release afterwards, because it was so intense to be like, how do I let go of all this training?”

Rest has become central to their practice. “I love resting. I need to rest. I need to have my floor time, as I call it. Like, laying in the dark, laying on the floor, nothing happening, or just staring out a window, reading a book. Like, I need it to function.” This philosophy extends to their performances, where they “sort of build in rest for myself. Where you get the audience to sort of discuss things. I’m still leading the session, but we discuss things. I’m not just playing and they’re not just receiving.”

The writings of Black feminist leaders profoundly shape their work. Audre Lorde’s essay “The Transformation of Silence into Language” transformed their approach to performance. “My silences had not protected me… I could say something and still get harmed, or I could say nothing and still get harmed, so you might as well say something, and it has the opportunity to shift.”

Their commitment to accessibility extends to their teaching practice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where trauma-informed methods shape every class. “It’s very much listing everything out, what I expect, what I expect from them, that it is a learning environment, that it’s okay to ask questions that might upset others because you need to ask those questions,” they explain. “And my job is to then help reframe that question into a way that is still possible to be asked, but maybe is less harmful.” This approach respects individual boundaries while creating space for growth: “It’s also a place to test your own boundaries. But it’s their responsibility to know what those are. I can’t know.”

Moving to Glasgow opened new artistic possibilities. “I had never seen a theatre play until I moved to Scotland,” they reveal. “Just so much happening in Glasgow, even with, like, the different styles of music, all the different venues… I’d never really seen, like, people my age doing visual art.”

Their upcoming Celtic Connections collaboration with award-winning artist and choreographer Mele Broomes exemplifies this cross-disciplinary approach. “Because she isn’t classically trained in voice, it means she experiments with all sorts of things,” they explain. “She’s able to access that with her vocals and with the way that she can change the timbres in her voice because she doesn’t have training around it.”

Their vision for classical music extends beyond performance to creating genuine social change. They see power in experiencing works like Mahler symphonies: “Seeing it live, I think, is really powerful because it is a slog. To play a Mahler symphony… to really experience musicians, like, going for it. And it constantly. Sound is just constantly happening, and it’s loud and it’s quiet, and to not really understand what they’re doing, but to know, like, ‘oh, that is. That was something.'”

At the heart of their work lies a commitment to making classical music accessible: “I think there is so much around classical music that people perceive as being very serious… You don’t need to be of a certain tax bracket to experience the cello… you don’t need to know the word for allegro or whatever to have fun or to be able to have a conversation.”

Through their work, Seales creates spaces where classical music becomes a vehicle for authentic expression, where technical perfection matters less than emotional truth, and where everyone is welcome to experience the transformative power of sound.

[Halina Rifai]

Simone Seales will perform as part of We Are Here Scotland’s Celtic Connections collaboration Thursday, 23 January at Recital Rooms, City Halls. Full information and tickets – celticconnections.com/event/1/we-are-here-scotland

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