New App Leads You Through A Musical Journey In Central Park

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Walking through Central Park on a fall day is a pleasant activity in and of itself, but you can make it even more enjoyable by letting a Pulitzer-winning composer guide you on a musical journey through the park.

Ellen Reid's SOUNDWALK is a new app that uses GPS tracking to deliver an immersive musical experience based on where you are in Central Park. The app is available to anyone with a smartphone.

After downloading the app, Central Park walkers can put on their headphones and hear different music depending on which path they choose to head down or which statue they happen to pass by.

The app was created in partnership with the New York Philharmonic, Saratoga Performing Arts Centers, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, and the Britt Festival Orchestra.

Reid also recorded a collection of the pieces included in the app with members of the New York Philharmonic, the Young People's Chorus of New York City, and jazz ensemble Pool and the Gang.

Reid, a critically acclaimed composer, created and chose the music specifically for the Central Park terrain, composing it as a "vast array of overlapping, interlocking musical 'cells' that rise and fall in your earbuds as your walk or dog," according to The Washington Post.

Reid had the idea for SOUNDWALK in March during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in New York City.

"These are unprecedented times; we're all experiencing the anxieties of living in an uncertain world. We miss our communities, and we miss the very thing that makes our cities special: the people," Reid wrote on her website for the app. "I hope SOUNDWALK will inspire us and make us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. It is meant to serve as artistic nourishment — a place to recharge, reconnect, and re-energize."

One example of a piece included in the app is a 2011 live recording of Bernard Haitink leading the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven's "Pastoral" arrives upon a loud applause as you pass the famous composer's statue in Central Park.

You can download SOUNDWALK in the app store.