Ars Nova Workshop is pleased to invite you to Spirits Up!: Mindfulness and Music at The Yard on John Coltrane St. for three sessions throughout June.

Spirits Up! is a Philadelphia based wellness initiative founded by Sudan Green, providing safe, culturally competent yoga, meditation, and mindfulness sessions specifically designed to promote healing and collective liberation within the Black and Brown communities.

Presented at The Yard on John Coltrane Street located in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion, these series of Mindfullness sessions will be led by Carley Simone and accompanied by Guzhengist Salina Kuo.

Carley Simone is a Philly-born social entrepreneur, artist, and facilitator whose work reimagines sound as a tool for connection and creativity. Her practice blends music and mindfulness into immersive listening experiences; drawing from global genres and guided reflection.

Her work has landed in classrooms, retreats, ceremonies, and community spaces; shaping themes of grief, resilience, love, justice, and peace into soundscapes that meet the body and mind in states of relaxation, contemplation, and resolve.

Currently developing sound sessions with the John Coltrane House, she continues building a body of work that honors Black artistic experimentation while making restorative experience feel accessible, contemporary, and culturally alive; becoming an art wellness note that stays long after the sound fades.

Salina Kuo is a singer/songwriter, percussionist, self-taught guzhengist, improviser, and educator, based in Philadelphia (Lenape territory). They have a deep admiration for black American music, world folk, free improvisation, and 60s/70s fem singer/songwriters. They write music that blends genres and utilizes uncommon instrumentation to create a unique yet cohesive and familiar sound. By confronting personal experiences with grief, depression, and intergenerational trauma, Kuo’s storytelling invites listeners into their world and share in their healing. They release music under St. John’s Wort (vibraphone indie-pop/rnb/soul) and River Full of Fruit (freak-folk chamber orchestra).

Kuo has experience teaching instrumental music, music theory, and songwriting to all ages (infancy to adulthood) through the PHL School District, the Free Library of PHL, School of Rock Philly, and Girls Rock Philly. They have performed in venues across the U.S. and Canada, ranging from basements to art galleries to concert halls. Notable performances: Composed + premiered music commissioned by PAFA & World Cafe Live, Public Orchestra (Marshall Allen, Anthony Tidd), performed alongside Tyshawn Sorey, Dan Blacksberg, Thurman Barker.