Learn about Colin

Artist Bio:

Colin Safley is an operatic baritone, musical theatre performer, and actor. Having caught the theatre bug at a very young age, Colin went on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance at DePaul University under Tenor Scott Ramsay, then earned a Master’s Degree at the Mannes School of Music under Baritone Stephen Powell. Colin has appeared in several shows both in school and in local theatres, starring in Die Zauberflöte, Candide, L’elisir d’amore, Company, and Don Giovanni. Colin takes particular interest in new works, having performed works by living composers such as Lori Laitman, Mark Adamo, Tom Cipullo, Lita Grier, Libby Larsen, and Jake Heggie. In his performances, Colin has been lauded for not only his fine vocal ability, but his acting skills and ability to bring a character to life.

If you’d like to learn a little bit more…

Hello! My name is Colin Safley, and thank you for coming to check out my website! I’d like to take this time to tell you about myself and how I came to be a working musician in New York City. So, (as cliche as it sounds) let’s start from the beginning…

I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. From a young age, my family could tell I “caught the theatre bug”. My first memories of performing are when I was Santa Claus in a preschool Christmas play, and playing Megatron in a play for kids based on Transformers. Along with that, I remember loving to sing as well. My grade school’s nurse recalls me always singing to myself as I walked down the halls, and I loved going to Catholic mass because I got to sing the hymns.

So, going into high school, I was destined to become a full-time theatre kid. I did a few plays in my time, like The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged and The Man Who Came to Dinner, two I remember very fondly. While I never got to perform in a musical, when I started studying classical voice repertoire, I fell in love. My voice was too low at the time to really be a high school musical kid; but with my voice teacher, Mr. Josh Lawlor, I learned to love the voice I had. So, I got the crazy idea to do this singing thing as a career.

That career would prove to be more attainable than I thought, as I was accepted to DePaul University’s Vocal Performance program. So, I came to Chicago to study with tenor Scott Ramsay and director Harry Silverstein. I found myself gladly very successful for a 18 year old singer, getting small parts in Benjamin Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera and Francesco Cavalli’s L’Egisto, as well as getting to spend a summer studying in Urbino, Italy with Musica Nelle Marche, a truly formative artistic experience.

But in 2020, I got the chance to do my first big role: Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro. However, there was a problem: the opera was to go up in March of 2020. I think we all know what happened in March of 2020. But, before we all went home to quarantine, the orchestra and singers got together and played some music. I’ve attached the video below, as that moment really did teach me how joyous making music with others is in a moment when we were all about to lose that joy.

Ever since then, I have strived to help build an amazing and loving community in the world of singing. I know how passionate I am about performance because I have lost it once. So as long as I’m performing, I want everyone in the audience and on stage with me to feel the love I have to share.

Colin as Banjo in his high school production of The Man Who Came to Dinner