A&E
Weldon focuses on promising music career after medical scare
By Cilly Geranios ’19
December 1, 2016
Tags a+e
Watching House or Scrubs, I feel as though I’ve become familiar with hospital terms and the disasters that can occur—comas, coding, crash carts and charts fill the subtitles, but the reality of these experiences escaped me. What does it mean for someone to go into a coma or require a crash cart? Musician and actor Julia Weldon recently found out for themselves.
Performing in the Fillius Events Barn on Oct. 17, Weldon followed a student opener, Aaron Collins ’19. Beginning with songs from their previous album, “Light is a Ghost,” they mentioned briefly the financial setback to their plans to release a new album this year—a coma. Strikingly, Weldon managed to relay this information while maintaining the tone of a conversation.
Resulting from encephalitis, the coma came closely after their top surgery last November. During their recovery, Weldon had saved through a large college tour ending at Hamilton the week before their surgery. However, a coma takes longer to recover from and so their savings were gone by the time they could even begin making an album.
Perhaps it was this information, sitting in the back of my mind, or maybe it was simply their voice, but Weldon’s performance resonated almost hauntingly—reminiscent of an acoustic Ellie Goulding or Zella Day. An interesting twist, they performed while asking feedback from an audience of obvious fans—they knew her songs.
New to the fandom, I was more struck by the fanbase they had accumulated and the conversation they had with their fans than I was by their songs. The ease and laid-back atmosphere of their show was refreshing. Further, the audience feedback and interaction was truly engaging—with joking teasing shared between some of the more courageous audience members.
Maintaining a conversational air while describing their coma and the struggles of the situation, Weldon preferred to focus on the humorous aspects— saying, “Usually, after a coma [doctors] are afraid there won’t be any positive emotion, but I was just the opposite.”
After the coma, Weldon faced a long road to recovery. However, this road was smoother than expected because of their positivity. “I progressed at a steady rate and exceeded the doctor’s expectations,” said Weldon. Recovering steadily, Weldon still faced a setback for their next album as the coma impacted their ability to sing and speak and play music. However, during this time they composed many of the songs for their next album, which they hope to release in 2017.
After recovering enough to perform, Weldon traveled to Europe to record and begin work on this next, as of now untitled album. Recorded and ready for final production, Weldon has spent months fundraising, through Kickstarter, to fund their next project.
At this concert, Weldon performed some titles from their new album—some directly related to the coma and others not as directly aligned. Changing their sound, Weldon said, “The beginning of the first album is a little poppy and catchy [… but] the next album is a more sophisticated version of my songs.”
The growth from the experience has transformed their sound, as has their new production guru. Weldon said, “It’s like a mature me, trying to get to the heart of the songs
rather than molding to something else.”