'Mindful Music Moments' Spends an Afternoon at the Cincinnati Zoo for Field Recordings Project

Thanks to the Ohio Arts Council, The Well received an ArtStart grant to commission Ohio-based musicians to create 6 new Mindful Music pieces and accompanying videos for the upcoming school year. We are excited to be working with Cincinnati-based musicians Jennifer Howd and Ben Sloan as well as Cleveland-based artist Uno Lady. Jennifer Howd and Ben Sloan have begun gathering a variety of sounds at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden to create this new music.

These field recordings will be used as the base of the new music. Additionally, Mindful Music students in Ohio and additional cities will learn how to make their own new music with sourced soundscapes and see their original works on a webapp that geolocates the sound source. Finally, a guest panel of musicians will select several student compositions for the second to last week of school’s Mindful Music.

In Cincinnati, Patrick Story, the Media Projects Manager at the Cincinnati Zoo, will shoot additional video so students will be able to see where the sounds came from. These videos will also be featured on UC Health’s Patient Wellness Channel.

Last week, Patrick toured Jen and Ben so they could scout locations, collect sounds from the wildlife and nature around us, and learn incredibly fascinating information on the creatures themselves. Patrick’s expertise allowed us to plan out what times of the day specific animals are more vocal, such as the monkeys, or what specific environments exotic birds need to be in to create more sounds. Learning these specific facts about the wildlife and the sounds they create made capturing the audio just that much more rewarding, and we are thrilled for these new pieces to come to life.

“It's such a unique opportunity to be able to combine my love for animals and nature with my passions for mindfulness and ambient music-making. I'm incredibly grateful to Stacy Sims and her amazing team for making this happen. Honestly, it's a dream come true.”- Jennifer Howd

Scroll through the images above to see a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes of creating that new music Special thanks to the Ohio Arts Council for their support!