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The American tenor, Seth Kilen, obtained his Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance and his Master of Music degree in Voice Performance and Music Literature from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Class of 2008); and his Doctor of Musical Arte degree in Voice Performance with a cognate in Voice Pedagogy from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (Class of 2023).
Seth Killen, enjoys a varied career singing, stage directing, conducting, and teaching. As a singer, he is most content performing art song, especially Lieder song cycles. He has performed the song cycles, Die Winterreise, An die ferne Geliebte, Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe, Die schöne Müllerin, and Liederkreis. On the opera stage, he appeared in the Illinois Opera theatre’s productions as Rodolfo in La Bohéme and Gonzalve in L’heure Espagnole, Scaramuccio in CCM’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos, and in the Greenville Light Opera Work’s productions as King Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Giles Corey in The Crucible. He spent three summers as a Corbett Young Artist at the Cincinnati Opera as a member of the core ensemble. He has appeared as a soloist in W.A. Mozart's Requiem with the orchestra Sinfonia da Camera, multiple J.S. Bach's cantatas with the Bach Collegium Musicum of Cincinnati, as well as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Camille Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël with Eastern Symphony Orchestra and W.A. Mozart's Coronation Mass and Missa Brevis. He can be heard on three opera recordings for children in which he created the role of José the Ferret. The most recent recording is, “Phinneas McBoof Crashes the Symphony,” and was recorded with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra alongside singers Nathan Gunn and Isabel Leonard. Most recently, he has performed as the tenor soloist in W.A. Mozart's Requiem, George Frideric Handel's Messiah, L.v. Beethoven's Mass in C, and Haydn’s Creation Mass.
Seth Killen is an Associate Professor of Music at Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina (since June 2021), where he teaches private voice, diction, and directs opera productions. He is interested in researching pedagogy and the intersection of voice disorders and psychology. He strives to guide students to greater vocal freedom through functional voice pedagogy and to more expressive singing by empowering them through strong preparation, self-discovery and actualization. As a researcher, he is currently in the process of investigating collaborative teaching formats, small group instruction, trauma-informed practices, and the effect of various grading systems on student stress.
When he is not on the stage, Seth Killen is either behind the piano in a musical theatre pit or on the podium conducting. Some of his favorite productions have been Little Shop of Horrors, Three Penny Opera, Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and Beauty and the Beast. He lives in Anderson, South Carolina with his wife and three girls. |
