Sean Bell performs his own arrangements of Early Music, remaining close to the original text and melody while reimagining instrumentation, harmony, and tonality. His artistic practice is founded on a synthesis of historical and contemporary performance. Bell approaches interpretation through the lens of Historically Informed Performance (HIP)—the method central to Early Music—yet treats repertoire as creative material without a preconceived idea of what the result will be. He works broadly and exploratively across these elements to embody the interpretation.
Research question:
How to explore interpretation in Historically Informed Performance through a poetic, experimental and “haptic” approach?
Sub-questions:
- Is it possible to have a HIP practice that doesn’t result in an Early Music interpretation?
- How can one critically engage with interpretation to reveal the worldviews that Early Music repertoire inhabits and through this illuminate contexts of today?
Through these questions, Bell investigates the technologies—in the Foucauldian sense—of both past and present, examining how they inform and reflect one another. The research seeks to investigate how historical material encodes belief systems across time and foster critical dialogue around why we engage with HIP. His project focuses on British 17th-century vocal music through three lab experiments:
Lab 1 – Recording Nostalgia: Using baroque guitar, bass viol, and tape machine, exploring the interplay between HIP and retro recording technologies.
Lab 2 – MASK: Reimagining the allegorical performance genre Masque through performance art, combining gesture, masking, and abstraction to reveal layered worldviews.
Lab 3 – Baroque Band: Exploring how to share the project’s artistic method with an ensemble of both acoustic and electronic instruments.
Link to project page at NMH: https://nmh.no/en/research/projects/sean-bell-phdproject-ku
Sean Bell is a countertenor and performance artist from Oslo, Norway. From September 2025, he is pursuing a PhD in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music. He holds a Master’s degree in Early Music Voice from the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, and a Bachelor’s from the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Sean performs operatic, chamber, and sacred works from the classical and early music canon, exploring new approaches to interpretation. Through contemporary sonic imaginations, he has made new arrangements of old works, including Dowland Downloaded, a synth-pop album based on songs by John Dowland. His investigations have led to collaborations and solo performances that merge classical music and performance art.
He also works extensively with contemporary music, premiering and commissioning new works for countertenor. Sean has collaborated with different ensembles including Ny Norsk Messingkvintett, and his practice spans playing baroque guitar, improvisation, instrument building, and music electronics.
In 2021, he debuted at Høstutstillingen with his performance Stille Amare. In 2023, he made his solo debut at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet as Johan in David Bruce’s Nothing. His Dowland Downloaded tour in 2024–25 brought his work to audiences across Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the UK-