Media Kit
Music belongs in wild places.
Wild Notes Foundation is a Houston-based nonprofit bringing free, live classical music into parks, beaches, trails, and other natural spaces.
Founded in 2025 by cellist and educator Amanda Guilfoyle, Wild Notes explores a simple idea: that experiencing music within a living landscape can help people notice the natural world differently—and that deeper attention and connection can become a foundation for stewardship.
Rather than asking audiences to enter a traditional concert hall, Wild Notes brings intimate, acoustic performances directly into the places the organization hopes people will come to know and care about.
Programs are designed around the landscapes in which they take place. A beach, wetland, forest, night sky, or changing season is not simply scenery behind a performance. It is part of the experience.
The Story
What happens when the concert hall becomes something... wild?
Wild Notes began with a question: could classical music help people experience nature more deeply?
Founder Mandy Guilfoyle had spent most of her life in classical music and music education while developing an increasingly place-centered approach to listening, ecology, and musical experience. Wild Notes grew from the intersection of those worlds.
The organization now produces free classical music experiences in Texas parks and natural spaces, with programming shaped by place, season, ecology, and the communities gathering there.
The goal is not simply to perform outdoors.
It is to create moments in which people listen differently—to the music, to the landscape, and perhaps to the relationship between the two.
One audience member said that during a Wild Notes performance, she noticed that “the birds were listening, too,” and that the experience made her feel more connected to the nature surrounding her.
That moment captures much of what Wild Notes hopes to make possible.
Wild Notes at a Glance
More About Us:
Founded: 2025
Based in: Houston area, Texas
Founder: Amanda Guilfoyle
What we do: Free, place-responsive classical music programming in parks and natural spaces
Why: To deepen people's connection with the natural world through music and inspire greater attention, care, and stewardship
Programs to date: Performances at three natural sites, with additional programs scheduled
Estimated audience reached: Approximately 200 people
Funds raised since founding: Approximately $5,000
Performance approach: Short, primarily unamplified acoustic programs designed with consideration for the surrounding soundscape and wildlife
Website: WildNotes.org
Media inquiries: hello@wildnotes.org
Current and Upcoming Events
La Mer: French Music on the Beach
August 23, 2026 | Galveston Island State Park
Wild Notes returns to Galveston Island State Park for La Mer, a free morning program of French music for solo cello performed beside the Gulf.
The program explores the meeting of music and coastal landscape, allowing the sounds of the shoreline to remain part of the listening experience.
The program is presented in partnership with and generously sponsored by Friends of Galveston Island State Park.
Potential story angles: arts and culture, Galveston, unusual classical performance, outdoor arts, music and place.
One Day, Two Landscapes
September 19, 2026 | Brazos Bend + Galveston Island
On September 19, Wild Notes will participate in two very different programs across two Texas landscapes in a single day.
In the morning, Guilfoyle will perform at Brazos Bend State Park during Veterans at the Bend, an event supporting veterans and suicide-awareness efforts. Music will offer participants a quiet place to pause during the morning's outdoor experience.
That evening, Wild Notes travels to Galveston Island State Park for an International Observe the Moon Night program, part of the worldwide celebration of lunar science and exploration. The planned musical program includes Philip Glass's Orbit for solo cello, performed as visitors gather to observe the night sky.
From wetlands in the morning to the moon over the Texas coast at night, the two programs demonstrate the range of places and communities Wild Notes hopes music can serve.
Potential story angles: human interest, Texas travel, veterans, astronomy, classical music, state parks, environmental arts, unusual Houston-area people and organizations.
Story Ideas
Wild Notes and Mandy Guilfoyle are available for interviews, features, demonstrations, and conversations, including:
Why Take Classical Music Out of the Concert Hall?
What changes when classical music is experienced on a beach, beside a wetland, or underneath the night sky?
Can Music Help People Care About Nature?
Wild Notes is exploring the idea that stewardship can begin with attention: before people protect a place, they often need an opportunity to notice it, experience it, and develop a relationship with it.
What Happens When the Landscape Becomes Part of the Performance?
Wild Notes programs leave room for birdsong, waves, wind, insects, and other environmental sounds rather than attempting to reproduce the controlled acoustics of a concert hall outdoors.
Rethinking Where Classical Music Belongs
Traditional classical music institutions generally ask audiences to come to them. Wild Notes reverses the relationship by bringing intimate performances into public natural spaces.
Music and the Night Sky
Wild Notes' September 19 International Observe the Moon Night appearance brings Philip Glass's Orbit into an evening devoted to observing and learning about the moon.
A Houston Founder Building an Unusual Kind of Arts Nonprofit
Guilfoyle founded Wild Notes in 2025 and is developing the organization at the intersection of classical music, environmental experience, public programming, and ecological education.
Education and Stewardship
Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET)
Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET)
Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET)
Amanda Guilfoyle also created Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET), a framework that approaches music education as an ecosystem of relationships among learner, teacher, music, community, and place.
EMET draws on ecological concepts to ask how musical experiences change when context and environment are treated as meaningful participants rather than neutral backgrounds.
Wild Notes provides a public-facing space in which some of these ideas can be explored through real musical experiences in living landscapes.
Acoustic Stewardship
Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET)
Ecosystemic Music Education Theory (EMET)
Wild Notes believes performing in natural spaces carries responsibilities as well as possibilities.
Programs are intentionally brief, unamplified, and designed with the existing soundscape in mind. We consider repertoire, instrumentation, location, duration, and volume for every concert.
Wild Notes aims to leave no physical trace of its performances while also treating the acoustic environment as something worth caring for.
Interview Availability
Mandy Guilfoyle is available for:
- Print and digital interviews
- Television and radio interviews
- Podcast appearances
- In-studio cello demonstrations
- On-location filming at select Wild Notes programs
- Conversations about classical music, ecology, music education, place-based arts programming, and nonprofit development
For time-sensitive media requests, please include your outlet and deadline.
Media Contact:
Mandy Guilfoyle
Founder, Wild Notes Foundation
Email: hello@wildnotes.org
Website: WildNotes.org
