Biography

Originally from Florida, Simone Seales is a Glasgow-based cellist and performance artist. They focus on free improvisation, live looping, poetry, and devising music for theatre. Through their collaborative and creative process, they prioritize play, silliness, and connection.

Simone is passionate about exploring sound, how sound can reflect emotional states of being and how emotions are embodied. Their creative influences come from Black feminist leaders such as Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur and bell hooks. Within Simone's creative work, they centre Blackness, sexuality, intersectional feminism and anti-racism. They believe Western Classical musicians are capable of making meaningful social change.

Recently, Simone was commissioned to create a performance for the Scottish Mental Health Art Festival Now You See Us showcase, where they used poetry and improvised music to explore the power of language to empower people facing oppression. They were also commissioned to compose the music for Scottish National Galleries’ interview for Everlyn Nicodemus. In the summer of 2024, Simone composed and performed the music for Mele Broomes’s new dance theatre piece through warm temperatures which premiered at the Edinburgh Art Festival in August, and was presented at the Actoral Festival in Marseille in October.

Simone has performed a solo improvised sets at Fruitmarket Gallery’s festival of new music Deep Time, AMPLIFI at Queen’s Hall, the Edinburgh Blues and Jazz Festival, and the Dundee Jazz Festival. They presented Still I Rise, a school’s concert series with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. They have performed as part of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s UN:TITLED concert experience in Summerhall in Edinburgh and Saint Luke’s Glasgow, Edinburgh International Children’s festival and dance festivals across Scotland with Taylor Han in their show With Catastrophic Consequences. Simone has also performed in the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells as part of Second Movement’s Rough for Opera #18, where Simone shared Ella Jarman-Pinto and Jennifer Farmer’s new opera belly/back.

In the summer of 2023, they announced their debut album I believe in living— a responsive improvisation to the poem Affirmation by Assata Shakur. They also performed across the Edinburgh Festivals in two events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and in the production Member by Fairly Lucid Productions at Gilded Balloon as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Passionate about reaching new audiences and increasing access to arts education, Simone is a Mentor and Ambassador Programme Assistant for the Benedetti Foundation. They focus on trauma-informed teaching practices, which is also embedded within their role as a part-time lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Simone is a recipient of Paraorchestra’s Modulate Ideas Fund, the Innovation Studio Fund, Sphinx MPower Artist Grant 2022 and former Young Artist in Residence for Chamber Music Scotland.