NASHVILLE, Tenn. — This Sunday, March 1, audiences will trade traditional theater seating for yoga mats as the floor of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center transforms into a full-body, immersive wellness experience.
The Higher Vibrations series is a collaboration between symphony musicians and mindfulness practitioners designed to merge music, movement, and meditation into one cinematic evening. Doors open at 6 p.m., with wellness vendors in the lobby offering curated experiences before the event begins. The concert itself will last one hour. Tickets are for June are online now.
Participants are encouraged to bring:
A yoga mat
Water
A journal (optional)
Comfortable clothing
The event is beginner-friendly and accessible to all experience levels. Guests will move through simple, mindful movement, breathwork, guided meditation with the symphony playing live — all designed to “elevate your spirit.”
Leading the experience is Nashville-based healer, musician and founder of Music City Mindfulness, Joanna Barbera.
Joanna Barbera’s journey into healing didn’t begin in Nashville, it began in Arizona.
“I started following the yogic path about 25 years ago,” Barbera says. Originally from New York, Barbera found herself in Arizona for College. “I think something about just going out west and seeing such a big world that I had never known before, it was kind of a vagabond or Hippie child of me!” she laughed.
Landing in Arizona exposed her to ancient healing practices she had never encountered before.
She first immersed herself in the Korean arts, studying the intangible language of energy through a deeply rooted, lineage-based approach. Rather than abstract mysticism, her training focused on the structured study of meridians, energetic balance, and traditional movement practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong.
“I started kind collecting all these tools that were helping me with my own anxiety in my own life,” Barbera said. “They were really elevating my spirit and helping me have the confidence to move through that time.”
Long before she was guiding breathwork inside symphony halls, Barbera dreamed of being on a different kind of stage.
“All my life, I always wanted to be a singer and an actress,” she says. “I always was secretly writing songs on piano.”
But for years, she kept her healing work and music separate.
“One is like a rock star and the other one’s like a spiritual healer, and how could I be that if I’m playing at clubs until 2 in the morning?”
After her father passed away when she was 26, everything shifted.
“Once my father passed away, I had that like angst of like, ‘Wow, life is short. This is what I really want to do,'” she said.
She moved from San Francisco to Austin, immersing herself in the city’s collaborative music culture before eventually relocating to Nashville. She toured Europe, opening for the band Deer Tick, performing in rooms of 500 to 700 people.
But something felt misaligned.
“As I got back from that very long, tiring tour, where there were a lot of drinking and partying, I was like, ‘No. I don’t think I could do this,’” Barbera admitted.
She stepped away from music and leaned fully into mindfulness including women’s circles, retreats online communities.
Then, four years ago, music returned.
“It was just screaming to come back into my life,” she expressed. What emerged was not a return to traditional performance, but something entirely new.
Barbera now works one-on-one with clients to create what she calls a Soul Song, a personalized, professionally recorded anthem born from breathwork, meditation, and deep emotional excavation.
“I work with people in the same way, teaching them how to lower stress, how to regulate their nervous system with these practices,” she said. However, I’m also like their musical conduit.”
Clients typically complete six sessions that are sometimes spread out over several months. Each meeting begins with breathwork or movement before transitioning into storytelling and songwriting.
“The whole point for me is to get them to turn into their inner guidance and their inner wisdom through these ancient practices.”
As clients speak, Barbera begins composing in real time.
“I’ve been gifted in the ability to very quickly craft lyrics as people speak to me. Same with melody,” she explained.
The experience culminates in a professional studio recording, often at Nashville’s renowned Blackbird Studio with top-tier musicians bringing the client’s anthem to life.
“They get to have a bucket list experience of hearing their life become a song,” Barbera said.
One client, processing long-held guilt found closure through a song written as a letter to him. Another client’s playful, rock-inspired anthem unexpectedly channeled the voice of her late brother.
When asked whether she considers herself a medium, Barbera pauses.
“What I do know is that when I sing or when I lead, Joanna, who can be high strung and neurotic at times and overthinking, leaves the building. And I do have some kind of capacity to just open up and let whatever you want to call it flow through me.”
We think a musical medium is on our hands!
That intersection, music and mindfulness, is now the core of her brand.
“My business now is the intersection of where mindfulness meets music, meets your highest expression of your authentic voice,” she said.
Higher Vibrations at the symphony embodies that mission.
“Concert goers will be able to hopefully go into imaginative place to get them into the elevated state,” Barbera shared.
Approximately 400 people attended the last event, filling the entire floor with yoga mats. There is also an option for attendees to practice on stage alongside the musicians.
“There’s movement, there’s breath, there’s meditation, but there’s a lot of space to really listen to the music as well.”
Tickets are still on sale, but going quickly. Visit Barbera’s website and follow her on Instagram to keep up with her in and out of the Nashville Symphony center.
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