Simone Seales has had a wild year. Though when asked to recall it, they stall. ‘I’m really bad at remembering what I’ve done,’ they laugh, screwing up their face in concentration. Understandable: in the past 12 months, the intersectional cellist and activist has released a tender debut album Dearest, performed at festivals, began a residency with Paraorchestra in Bristol and collaborated with Young Fathers on the score for post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Years Later. ‘Everything happened at once, completely unintentionally, but it’s been exciting, and it’s seeped into my practice in different ways.’

At the centre of this chaos sits Dearest, a spacious, captivating record Seales describes as a ‘memory box’. It traces the emotional fallout of early love with softness and nuance. ‘It’s about my first queer relationship, which shaped so much of who I am. I carried it around for almost eight years before I was ready to look at it.’

Blending classical composition with improvised cello and spoken word, the project was written by Seales but voiced by performer Mele Broomes. ‘Having someone else speak the poems meant I could focus on the music; let that hold the feeling instead.’ In refining the lyrics, Seales worked with award-winning poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, who encouraged language that feels precise and nostalgic: ‘little time capsules,’ Seales says, ‘built to carry you somewhere specific.’

For Seales, creating work isn’t separate from the question of who gets to be seen and heard in classical and experimental music. Lack of representation isn’t theoretical: it’s lived. ‘Classical music isn’t neutral,’ they say. ‘It never has been. We just pretend it is.’ Seales has spent years in spaces where openness and experimentation are celebrated, yet the bodies in the room tell a different story. ‘I want spaces where people don’t have to shrink or translate themselves to belong.’ The residency with Paraorchestra (a collective of disabled and non-disabled musicians) signals a shift. ‘Access is creative. When everyone can fully participate, the work gets bigger, stranger, more interesting.’ 

Main picture: Matthew Arthur Williams. 

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