A woman plays cello outdoors with mountain views in the background.

Our Story

The Spark

🎻 Our Story

Six years ago, our founder, Dr. Amanda Guilfoyle, performed a solo cello recital in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Listeners hiked to reach her, and as she played, the music mingled with rustling trees, circling birds, and the hush of dusk settling over the ridgeline. She hadn’t expected a crowd; nothing like this had been done in the area before. But after hiking up with her cello and the proper permits, she arrived at the overlook to find far more people than she imagined—some who had traveled hours to experience music in that specific place.

Even more touching were the hikers who paused mid-trail, listening quietly before continuing. One shared that a bear had been spotted nearby, as if the wildlife itself had gathered to witness the moment.

That evening became a defining memory in her 22-year performing career. It revealed a truth she’d always felt: music doesn’t only belong in concert halls. It belongs here — where the earth is breathing, where wind becomes part of the score, and where something ancient in all of us remembers how to listen.

That experience became the seed of Wild Notes: A movement dedicated to bringing music, listening practices, and environmental awareness into the heart of wild spaces.

🌿 Why Wild Notes Exists

Our national and state parks are among America’s greatest treasures — living landscapes full of history, biodiversity, and the sacred stillness we lose in our daily rush. But these places face growing threats from development, pollution, climate change, and disconnection.

At Wild Notes, we believe that connection is conservation.

When someone hears a cello weaving through birdsong or participates in a guided soundwalk, they don’t just appreciate nature—they feel it. They remember why the land matters. That remembering becomes care, and that care becomes stewardship.

Wild Notes exists to create these moments of reconnection through unplugged performances, guided soundwalks, educational programming, and collaborations with parks across the country.

✨ How You Can Help

You are part of this movement. Every bit of support helps bring Wild Notes to more communities and more landscapes:

🛤️ More performances and soundwalks in wild places
🎻 More people moved by the beauty of the natural world
🌎 More hearts stirred to protect the land that sustains us all

Because this isn’t just about music—it’s about what happens when we pause, listen, and make space for beauty… and then choose to protect the places where that beauty lives.

Support The Mission

Wild Notes relies on community support to make these performances possible.

Your donation helps cover travel costs, permits, outreach, and gear needed to bring classical music into natural spaces.

Give today and help us grow this mission of conservation through music.

Give Today!

About Us

Mission

Wild Notes Foundation connects people more deeply with the natural world through music, listening, and place-based experiences.

We believe that caring for a place begins with noticing it.

In parks, beaches, forests, wetlands, and other protected landscapes, Wild Notes creates experiences that invite people to slow down and pay attention—to music, to birdsong, to wind and water, to changing light, and to the living world already unfolding around them.

Classical music is at the heart of our work, not simply as entertainment presented in a beautiful setting, but as a way of changing how we listen. A piece of music can interrupt the rush of everyday life. It can make us still. It can sharpen our attention and open us to details we might otherwise pass by. When that kind of listening happens within a landscape, music can become a doorway into a deeper relationship with place.

Our programs are developed in partnership with parks, public lands, musicians, educators, and ecological experts and can take many forms—from place-responsive performances and guided listening experiences to environmental education, collaborative interpretation, and programs inspired by the ecology, history, soundscape, and character of a particular place.

At the center of all of this is a simple idea:

Music opens our ears. Listening deepens attention. Attention creates connection. Connection inspires care.

Wild Notes exists to create those moments of connection—and to help people encounter the natural world not simply as scenery, but as something alive, remarkable, and worthy of our attention and care.

Vision

Wild Notes envisions a world where people experience the natural world with greater attention, wonder, and care—and where music and the arts are recognized as powerful ways of building meaningful relationships between people and place.

We envision parks and protected landscapes as places not only for recreation and conservation, but for listening, learning, creativity, and connection: places where encounters with music, ecology, and beauty can inspire a lifelong sense of belonging to the living world.

Ultimately, we hope to help cultivate a culture of stewardship rooted not only in knowing why nature matters, but in having experienced that relationship for ourselves.

Values

1. Natural Integration

Embracing unplugged performance—no artificial amplification
Letting music blend with nature’s rhythms rather than compete with them
Minimizing our physical and ecological footprint
Creating soundscapes that honor, not interrupt, the wild

2. Journey & Discovery

Rewarding the effort and wonder of reaching natural performance spaces
Honoring both intentional audiences and serendipitous hikers
Creating magical moments of encounter between people, music, and land
Making every concert a shared journey—not just an event

3. Accessibility

Selecting trail-friendly, moderate routes whenever possible
Providing clear maps, signage, and support
Offering all performances for free with optional donations
Welcoming nature lovers and music listeners of all backgrounds, abilities, and experience levels

4. Environmental Stewardship

Practicing and promoting Leave No Trace principles
Respecting wildlife, habitats, and seasonal rhythms
Inspiring conservation through emotional connection and reverence
Using art to awaken responsibility for the natural world

5. Community & Connection

Building bridges between hikers and artists, strangers and friends
Offering shared moments of stillness, reflection, and joy
Encouraging interdependence between people and planet
Centering compassion, curiosity, and shared responsibility

6. Artistic Excellence

Presenting thoughtfully curated, site-responsive programs
Adapting repertoire to natural acoustics and seasonal settings
Upholding high artistic standards even in the wilderness
Crafting unforgettable experiences through beauty, intention, and care

7. Conservation Partnership

Collaborating with state and national parks, preserves, and wildlife organizations
Supporting ecological education through creative programming
Using music as a tool for awareness, advocacy, and connection
Amplifying the missions of those working to protect our planet’s wildest places