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 has been awarded a 2024 NYSCA artist grant.