Catch a performance of What the Spirits Show by One Ounce Opera in Austin, Texas. Music by Silen Wellington, Libretto by Walken Schweigert.
https://oneounceopera.com/announcing-the-winning-selections-for-fsoo-2024/
Catch me reciting some poetry and playing the role of “Seer” in a Drag Christmas Spectacular!
Tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-drag-christmas-spectacular-tickets-769236837087
Get ready for the ultimate festive extravaganza with "A Drag Christmas Spectacular," where dazzling Queers will slay their way to Bethlehem.
A CHRISTMAS STORY NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!
Part theatre, part drag show, part queer retelling of the Christmas story, A Drag Christmas Spectacular will debut an original piece of Queer performance art that will give queers a home during the holidays.
You'll meet the three Magi: Gayspar, Belthaslay, and Melqueer who try to follow the star that appears one night, the star that promises the birth of new life, hope, and joy, but let's just say, they get a little off track....
Featuring the creative genius of Krisa Gonna and a cast of phenomenal performers like Mx. Soña Rita, Gila Moonstar, Little Sarah Tonin, Liz Agana, Veginia Quartz, Magnus Magnesia, Poly Amour and more!
The creative partnership between Krisa Gonna and Foothills Unitarian will center the queer experience of epiphany and the claiming of queer truth and identity as life-giving and divine.
Harnessing deep relationships with the local Colorado LGBTQIA community, local performers will be invited to co-create aspects of the performance drawing from their own lives.
Ticket Sales go to fairly compensate our amazing actors and team with proceeds going to support Rainbow Villages.
A dance ritual. A wild hunt. A meditation during the longest night of the year.
Majestic View Nature Center, Arvada
December 7th-17th
Tickets here: https://www.controlgroupproductions.org/
Join me for a night of new music, poetry, and performance art exploring the impact of anti-transgender hate and queer resilience.
The program will include new spoken word + piano music where Silen will share their story about being targeted by anti-trans hate, and piano-vocal songs about the resilience and beauty of queerness.
Following, we will open the stage to other poets and spoken word artists to express and share with the option of musical improvisation over their words.
$10 suggested donation. Pay what you can. Eventbrite requires at least donating a dollar to reserve a seat through their "donation" settings. Email: swellingtoncomposer@gmail.com if you want to reserve a seat and can't pay $1. Please fill out one ticket form for each person in your party.
This event is in partnership with Out Boulder County & SPLASH NoCo Youth and supported by SummitStone Health Partners. Thank you all for your support!
Thank you also to Bas Bleu theater for donating their theatre to this event.
This is an independent production from Bas Bleu. The Bas Bleu Theatre has been made available for this event by special arrangement between the Bas Bleu Theatre Company and SPLASH NoCo Youth.
Link to RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transcendent-queer-music-poetry-tickets-721793492767?aff=oddtdtcreator
Accessibility Info:
Bas Bleu is wheelchair accessible with at least 5 spots in the front that could fit a wheelchair and 5 other seats that don't require stairs to sit in. The rest of the 90 chairs are elevated. If you want to reserve one of the ground level seats, please email: swellingtoncomposer@gmail.com.
If you need to take a break, if you feel overstimulated or the intense themes of this show are too much, I will not be offended by you stepping out to take care of yourself. There are chairs and tables in the Bas Bleu lobby, and you can come back in at any point
Come see me perform some electroacoustic music with Playground Ensemble at Leon Gallery in Denver! Tickets here.
For ticket, visit here.
20 minute opera with libretto by Walken Schwiegert and music by Silen Wellington as part of the Kennedy Center’s American Opera Initiative.
Join Tessa Romano (they/them) for a Songs of the Rainbow: Music and Trans Identity, which will also feature our nonbinary cabaret song cycle Place Them on the Altar and my aria “The Bridge and the Breaker” from my nonbinary chamber opera, Dame, Not Lady.
Join me at a PBS storytelling event where I’ll share my story about surviving suicide attempts.
Colorado is usually in the top 10 states with the highest rates of suicide. Through this unique Ted Talk-style storytelling event, PBS12 will help make more Coloradans aware of the impact of suicide and suicidal intensity, and most importantly, the many roadmaps to recovery.
Storytelling has the power to save lives. When it comes to suicidal intensity, suicidal behavior or a suicide loss, people often feel profoundly alone. Stories connect us, build supportive communities, shift biased attitudes, and cultivate hope.
Facilitated by Sally Spencer-Thomas, Psy.D. and Co-Founder & President of United Suicide Survivors International, this event will feature diverse local stories as well as a special highlight from the PBS documentary by Ken Burns, Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness.
We invite you to join us on an inspiring journey from pain to purpose.
Tickets: https://www.pbs12.org/tickets/eye-of-the-survivor-event/
Join me and other musicians & poets to observe international suicide prevention day. A night of music, art, and poetry.
Join me and the other Wolverine Farm artists in residence the month of August for a showcase of how we spent our residency!
https://www.wolverinefarm.org/programming/writer-in-residence/
Fort Collins tickets: CLICK HERE.
Boulder tickets: CLICK HERE.
Join us for a night of music, poetry, and ritual exploring nonbinary identity.
Tessa Romano (they/them) will perform nonbinary cabaret songs about coming out, expression through hair, and gender affirming language. Playground Ensemble will perform with me (Silen) speaking poetry that explores the paradox of being both de-sexualized and hyper-sexualized as a transgender person, divulging and releasing the harassment I’ve experienced from cisgender men on dating apps.
Following, we will open the stage to other poets and spoken word artists to express and share with the option of musical improvisation over their words.
Questions? Want to volunteer at the event or help me market in exchange for a comp ticket? Contact me using the form at the bottom of this page.
The Boulder show & the overall project Place Them on the Altar is funded by a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission, an agency of the Boulder City Council, with a generous in-kind donation from the Dairy Arts Center.
The Fort Collins show is sponsored by Bohemian Foundation’s Music Event Fund in partnership with SPLASH NoCo Youth, with additional support from CSU’s Pride Resource Center.
Fort Collins tickets: CLICK HERE.
Boulder tickets: CLICK HERE.
Join us for a night of music, poetry, and ritual exploring nonbinary identity.
Tessa Romano (they/them) will perform nonbinary cabaret songs about coming out, expression through hair, and gender affirming language. Playground Ensemble will perform with me (Silen) speaking poetry that explores the paradox of being both de-sexualized and hyper-sexualized as a transgender person, divulging and releasing the harassment I’ve experienced from cisgender men on dating apps.
Following, we will open the stage to other poets and spoken word artists to express and share with the option of musical improvisation over their words.
Questions? Want to volunteer at the event or help me market in exchange for a comp ticket? Contact me using the form at the bottom of this page.
The Boulder show & the overall project Place Them on the Altar is funded by a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission, an agency of the Boulder City Council, with a generous in-kind donation from the Dairy Arts Center.
The Fort Collins show is sponsored by Bohemian Foundation’s Music Event Fund in partnership with SPLASH NoCo Youth, with additional support from CSU’s Pride Resource Center.
Join me and Sputter Box in New York City for a premier of a brand new chamber work commission by Kinds of Kings composer collective as part of my 2022 Bouman Fellowship.
Saturday, April 9th at 7:00pm in Denver, I will be premiering Hollow: A Banishing Ritual with the Playground Ensemble. Hollow is a piece for string quartet, electric guitar, and poetry exploring the paradox of being both de-sexualized and hyper-sexualized as a transgender person. In public, mainstream narratives of desirability often preclude transgender bodies, but in private, in the anonymity of dating apps, I have experienced far more harassment and objectification from cisgender men (both gay and straight) after transitioning.
Using found text from cis men on dating apps, Hollow unveils the public/private paradox of cis men’s desire for trans bodies, unearths the hollowness of affection fueled by objectification, and asks how we can reach for each other’s humanity.
Get your tickets here and I hope to see you there!
Tune into the livestream for Mx. Ariel Rose Flach’s senior recital at the University of Colorado Boulder, where they will be premiering a new work for solo flute & electronics titled “not ur babygirl,” exploring the gender dysphoria associated with being misgendered by a beloved. Livestream is here!
What are you afraid to say out loud? What words get stuck behind your teeth or in a lump in your throat? When do you notice yourself withdraw? When are you not being vulnerable, or when do you feel like you can’t be vulnerable? How are you, really?
“What I’m trying to tell you” explores the difficulty of emotional vulnerability in online spaces. Throughout the piece, performers play with inner & outer expressions, overlapping and interrupting each other. Gradually, the performers begin to speak, giving voice to what we are afraid to say out loud.
Throughout the piece, audience members are invited to submit their responses to the question, What are you afraid to say out loud? Responses can be submitted to the performers directly (not viewed by the rest of the audience), and performers will read those responses as part of the music.
Join me & the Playground Ensemble for this Remote Lab experience Friday, February 26th! Livestream will be posted here.
Pending performance at the Music District in Fort Collins this fall! More details to come.
Join the Octagon Ensemble in Invergarcill, Aotearoa New Zealand on Saturday, July 11th at 2:30pm and in Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand on Sunday July 12th at 2:30pm for a premier of my choral work “Find Me at the Horizon.”
Virtual celebration party for Bleeding Thunder: a zine exploring genderqueer menstruation. Find details on our Facebook event.
Join me and Michelle Elvy for a night of poetry in Dunedin.
Join me, Tessa Romano, and Terence Dennis at the University of Otago for my premier of “Beholden” for mezzo-soprano, piano, and electronics. Details of the performance can be found here.
Join me at the University of Otago in Dunedin for a performance of my full-length solo show! Details of the performance can be found here.
Weaving together electroacoustic music, spoken word, and ritual, Silen Wellington shares pieces of their transgender journey, exploring themes of legibility/illegibility, coherence/incoherence, survival/resistance, and the sacred/profane.
Click the following links to get tickets:
If you can't come to the show, one way you can support me is to share the Facebook events with your friends! Here are the links to each show: Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins.
Join us in New York for my premier of Gathering Bone, a song cycle exploring the myth of Ymir, with Tessa Romano (mezzo) and Elisa Muzzillo (flute).
Come to SEAMUS Music Conference at Berklee School of Music/Boston Conservatory in Boston for my electroacoustic performance art piece “when my body becomes the art.”
Join me for my premier of “body like scripture,” a piece of electroacoustic performance art, at the Pendulum New Music Concert Series at CU Boulder.
Come see the premier of a new choral work by Selena Wellington - "it is not for fear," sung by Ars Nova. Two performances:
Friday, April 27, 7:30pm - Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 E. Hampden Avenue, Cherry Hills Village and
Saturday, April 28, 7:30pm - St. John's Episcopal Church, 1419 Pine Street, Boulder
http://www.arsnovasingers.org/
Join us for a musical/performative garden experience exploring a genderqueer reading of the Norse myth of Ymir.
Stop by any time between the hours of 2 and 4pm. Interaction with the garden and performers is encouraged.
Music by S. Wellington
Design by Kellie Masterson
Choreography by Riley Bartlett
Poetry by S. Wellington
The Playground Ensemble will be performing Pied Horizon at 7:30pm Concert in The King Center Concert Hall
Metro State, The King Center Concert Hall, Auraria Campus
