Music for Healing, 2024 (album, installation, performance)
Music For Healing is an immersive and meditative sound experience, driven by live piano and interactive technology created by interdisciplinary artist, Angelica Olstad. Its primary goal is to foster personal healing that carries on outside the installation space and explore new ways for music and consciousness to interact by engaging all five senses. This project synthesizes Olstad’s formal training as a classical musician, 13 years of experience organizing community-focused wellness events, and 8 years working as an integrated producer.
Music For Healing combines an ambient soundscape - crafted from minimalist piano, natural sounds, and restorative beta and theta waves - with a carefully-curated physical environment that incorporates responsive lighting, color therapy, and soothing scents. Hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch are all activated as part of an integrated experience to create a space of calm and reflection.
This experience seeks to encourage not just inward introspection but to strengthen the empathetic social bonds between audience members. While spiritual and mindful experiences span all cultures, sound-based therapies and art and music are so often gatekept or associated with affluence. By learning to heal within, individuals can learn to break intergenerational trauma, learn self-acceptance, gain empathy, and build social cohesion. By crafting a truly communal space that brings together disparate artistic disciplines, Music For Healing intends to create an inclusive and accessible space that can bring healing modalities to diverse communities across New York City, expanding the possibility for interconnectedness on a broader societal scale.
Music for Healing was awarded a 2024 NYSCA artist grant.
Photo credit: Lizzie Brooks Yee
Project Credits / Collaborators: Created, directed, and produced by Angelica Olstad. Music written and performed by Angelica Olstad. Creative technology by Jason Snell. Video editing by Juan Thomas Cano Morla. Fabrication by Kolt Reagle. Visuals designed and select footage shot by Trevor New. Select cinematography by Jesse Sperling. Piano audio engineering, mix and master by Ben Talmi at Greylock Records. Synth audio engineering by Ryan Casey at Samples from Mars. Consulting by Dr. Lee Bartel, Ph.D and Jennifer Whitley, MS, BC-DMT, LCAT, CMA.
Talent: Elena Vazintaris (movement artist), Justin Rivera (meditator), Jennifer Katzman (meditator), Chicava Tate (meditator), Reuthanak Tap (meditator), Majo Bermudez (meditator), Cosmic Kitty (meditator), Tara Sheth (meditator), Marin Ljubas (meditator)
In collaboration with 100 Sutton Studios and Cinexin Studios
Sponsored by Arts Equity Group
Music for Healing was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.