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Seb Morgan
Seb Morgan at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, 2011
Seb Morgan at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, 2011
Background information
Birth nameSebastian Morgan
Born (1969-07-27) July 27, 1969 (age 54)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
OriginNottingham, England
Genres
Occupation(s)musician, songwriter, producer, photographer, filmmaker
Instrument(s)voice, piano, guitar
Years active1987–present
LabelsBlue Butterfly Music
Spouse(s)Ana Magdalena Repila (married 2007–2008) Catherine Morgan Wania (married 2013–present)
WebsiteOfficial website

Sebastian Morgan (Born 27 July 1969), is a singer-songwriter, musician, martial arts teacher, classic vehicle restorer, filmmaker, photographer and professional diver based in The Lake District in the North of England. He is a Fulbright Scholar in Acting and Performing Arts and has had an extensive career on and off stage as an actor, singer, musician, dancer and choreographer. At the time of writing this article, Sebastian is in the middle of a studying an MA in Film and Television at Falmouth University.

Early Life[edit]

Seb Morgan's family crest

Seb Morgan was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 27th of July 1969. The eldest of three children from Margarita del Cármen (née Ozcoidi), a Spanish-Argentine Anthropologist and Patrick Malcolm Hulbert Morgan, an English writer from a long line of British Armed Forces officers who were related to the Duke of Norfolk.

Sebastian attended St. Andrew’s Scots School in Buenos Aires, graduating with a baccalaureate and then moving on to study singing, acting and dance at various independent academies and schools in Buenos Aires while at the same time auditioning for different productions for theatre, advertising and film.

Career[edit]

After on-stage productions as a musical theatre performer and actor, and different parts played for film and television Seb plays a street thug in Highlander II across Christopher Lambert (filmed in Buenos Aires) and after that plays the lead in La Pluma del Angel, an Argentinian production about the son of Julio Ramos, the owner of the Buenos Aires based newspaper Ambito Financiero. The film doesn’t go as expected and Sebastian decides to move to London and settles in Petts Wood, Kent.

He will return to Argentina a year later due to his dad’s deteriorating MND illness[1], which Seb keeps dealing with by pulling him out of suffocating episodes through heimlich manoeuvres he has to do almost every day.

Seb performs for the Disney Character Programme of The Walt Disney Company doing shows in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile and later becomes a character coordinator. At the same time he is offered a place within the Magic of David Copperfield touring company as a show interpreter for Spanish-speaking countries[2] and after training with David in Louisville, Kentucky, he starts touring with the company and does this for the next 10 years, doing shows, press conferences and one-to-one interviews for radio and television in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Caracas, Bogotá, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, San Juan, Madrid, Barcelona, La Coruña, Valencia, Granada, Zaragoza and San Sebastian. At this point he gets awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in Acting and Performing Arts and moves to New York, spending the next two years at Circle in The Square, HB Studio, New Dance Group Arts Centre (NDG), ASCAP, SITI and New York University doing musical theatre performance, jazz dance and choreography, contemporary stage violence, stage combat, Suzuki Method of Actor Training advanced scene study, songwriting and composition and Greek mythology in Art.

Music[edit]

Seb Morgan started playing piano at age of six and by nine he had composed his first song. From then onwards he kept performing and composing music and lyrics which have now taken the shape of 4 albums and 2 EPs. His latest album, “Falling Then Flying” is a compilation of his best songs from the past two decades plus some new songs and a few instrumental interludes, produced “old style” into a double CD with a 36-page booklet, crediting the 18 musicians and 25 children from Kendal and Lancaster Stagecoach Youth Choir who participated in it.

He also helped designed the initial concept for Amore Infinito as a worldwide CD launch that promotes the use of Pope John Paul II's poems as lyrics for songs in all genres of music. The CD was successfully released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2008 featuring Plácido Domingo, Josh Groban, Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli. He has also set up and managed “The Cave” recording studio in Buenos Aires from 1999 to 2006 and Tree Bird Hedgehog Studio in Cumbria from 2011 to the present day.

Vlogging[edit]

Seb started filming himself with a Nokia E71 phone at the end of 2008, when vlogging or influencing weren't part of the vocabulary yet. Facebook was only a few years old and Seb has never stopped sharing videos about his music, vehicle restoration, acting and performing and travel, having uploaded over 3000 videos up to date. In 2013, he started Blue Butterfly Media with his wife Catherine, a production company that produces online content using original music, scripting and filming. Blue Butterfly Media engaged in charitable work by producing institutional videos for charities like Manna House, San Damiano Foundation in the US or causes like The Boogie Race for The Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

The Rock Move project[edit]

During 1998, while being based in New York on the Fulbright Commission’s award, Sebastian starts experiencing recurring nightmares where aeroplanes crash against tall buildings, which later collapse. On the 11th of September, 2001, Seb had to be on a plane arriving in JFK in the morning. The David Copperfield tour had been performing in Mexico and were on their way back before going to Russia. Since that day, Seb starts designing The Rock Move, a project to involve people in the construction of an international site for human awareness. A space for personal growth and the raising of human consciousness.

Martial Arts[edit]

Sebastian started training Shaolin and Yiquan with Shifu Tung Kuo Tsao and his first disciple Eduardo Cussatti, in Buenos Aires at the age of 17. Tung had been a young student with Wang Xiangzhai, who created Yiquan and then became a commando during the war. He later emigrated to Argentina where he set up a martial arts school.

Seb Morgan doing a Shaolin long sword form Buenos Aires in 2008

Seb never stopped training and after six years started teaching. He has taught Kung Fu and Yiquan in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Greece, Mexico, Spain, United States and now runs South Lakeland Yiquan Kung Fu in the North of England.

In 2010, Seb travels to India and is initiated into an intense Yoga practice he adds to his daily training, and has been following ever since. He has so far completed all the Isha Yoga programmes in Tamil Nadu and has even sung at the Dhyanalinga Temple on Christmas day.

Vehicle Restoration[edit]

Seb moved to The Lake District in 2010, after meeting his wife Catherine (née Wania) in India. Catherine had been born and raised in that part of the country and they both wanted Catherine’s kids to go to Queen Elizabeth’s School in Kirkby Lonsdale. Seb had to find an alternative income source so he got together with his father-in-law Roy, who had recently retired, and started Urchin Rigg Classic Cars out of a farm in Endmoor, Cumbria.

Some of the restorations by Seb Morgan between 2013 and 2023
Led Zeppelin's John Bonham's Jensen Interceptor MK III after restoration in 2022

Seb and Roy restored over 25 vehicles, including one of 20 surviving SAS Pinkies and Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham’s Jensen Interceptor mkIII, until January 2023 when Roy passed away at the age of 80.

Discography[edit]

Year Title Recorded, Mixed and Mastered
1993 Son of the Sun Bromley, London
1998 How to survive a King Astoria, New York
2008 The Turn Buenos Aires, Argentina
2015 SHiFT Edge Recording Studio, Cheshire
2017 We Will Meet Linden Studio, Tebay
2023 Falling Then Flying Tree Bird Hedgehog studio and HR Recording Studio, Cumbria

Filmography[edit]

Year Title Role Venue Award
2013 Progression Solicitors Director/Composer
2014 Manna House Director/Composer
2015 Boogie Race Director/Composer
2023 Meeting Jo Writer/Director
2023 Not here. Now Writer/Director/Composer Allentown Festival Official Selection
2023 Morecambe Director/Composer Budapest Movie Awards Best Director Honourable Mention

Further Reading[edit]

Yiquan Kung Fu

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Motor neurone disease (MND)". www.nhsinform.scot. Retrieved 2023-03-30.
  2. ^ says, Maria (2022-11-08). "Full List of Spanish-Speaking Countries — How many people speak Spanish?". Mondly Blog. Retrieved 2023-03-30.