Music & Wellness
How I See Music is part of Festival Napa Valley’s Arts for All programming. Each year, it reaches more than 1,200 students, seniors, and veterans across Napa County, including every third-grade student at a non-charter school in the Napa Valley Unified School District.
Led by Festival Napa Valley education staff, How I See Music workshops combine deep listening, discussion, and hands-on painting. Participants listen to symphonic music, identify instruments and musical changes, and reflect on the images and emotions it evokes. They then translate their responses into original paintings. Informed by practices used in therapeutic arts settings, the experience encourages creativity, focus, emotional expression, and spontaneity.
A curated selection of participants’ artwork is presented onstage during the Festival’s Summer Season, accompanied by a live orchestral performance of the featured work. A video installation showcasing recent artwork is also exhibited at CIA at Copia in July and August.
Participating teachers are invited to use the classroom kit to extend the workshop experience and enrich student learning.
To bring a free workshop to your school or senior center, please contact the Education Department.
2027 - Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
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.
