On 20 July 2026, TORCHES continues with a conversation with the multidisciplinary performance creator, composer, and vocalist Gelsey Bell. She is a core member of ensembles thingNY and Varispeed.
Gelsey Bell is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary performance creator, composer, and vocalist. Her recent works include the experimental opera mɔɹnɪŋ [morning//mourning] (2023), commissioned by the HERE Arts Center and presented in the Prototype Festival; Cairns (2020), a soundwalk for Green-Wood Cemetery; the musical one-act Archaeopteris (2025), commissioned by Wet Ink; and thingNY’s collaboratively written opera Mouthful (2024). She is the Co-Artistic Director of thingNY and Varispeed. She has released multiple albums, including the recent mɔɹnɪŋ [morning//mourning], Skylighght,and Heads Together. She has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Opera America, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Japan Foundation, NYSCA, and others. Performance highlights also include Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway) and Ghost Quartet, Robert Ashley’s Foreign Experiences and Improvement, Darius Jones’s Samesoul Maker, Alaina Ferris’s The Lydian Gale Parr, Aaron Siegel’s Rainbird, and other works by Jay Afrisando, Kate Soper, Tomomi Adachi, Brent Michael Davids, and others.
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