Education
How I See Music is a free interactive arts education activity provided by Festival Napa Valley as part of its Arts for All initiatives. Conducted as on-site workshops at schools, senior activity centers, and community centers, How I See Music combines “ears-on” and “hands-on” learning to explore symphonic music with all ages, teaching deep listening skills and the concept of abstraction in the visual arts.
Led by Festival Napa Valley education staff, workshops are designed to explore ideas of creativity, abstraction, spontaneity, and emotions through music and visual arts. It combines a deep listening exercise with the creation of original small format paintings in response to listening to a specific piece of symphonic music. Each year, the program reaches more than 1,000 students, seniors, and veterans across Napa County.
A curated selection of pieces are presented onstage during the Festival's Summer Season alongside a live orchestral performance of the featured piece, and a video installation of recent work is exhibited at CIA at Copia in July and August.
Teachers participating in How I See Music workshops are invited to use the classroom kit as a resource to complement and enhance student learning
To bring a free workshop to your school or senior center, please contact the Education Department.
2026 - Aaron Copeland's Hoedown
2025 - Felix Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream
2024 - George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
2023 - Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2
2022 - Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony
How I See Music is funded in part by Kaiser Permanente.
