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The first time I went to a Willo concert, I transcended my body. It was 2022 and I walked into Down & Out, a cozy East Village bar that has since closed. I sat through a small and intimate concert surrounded by total strangers and listened to jazz musician Wayne Tucker play with his band. Before this, I had never experienced the raw sensual and spiritual prowess of a trumpet, and by the end of the concert, the attendees—myself included—were asked to share our thoughts on the music. Somehow, the conversation began with jazz and ended with some of us sharing our most intimate secrets, heartbreaks and hopes for the future.
If this all sounds very kumbaya, it kind of is, but also, it isn't: Willo is part of a movement of spaces and events that wants us to turn off our phones, let our guards down and actually sit with one another. It combines the meditative and healing powers of music with socializing to create a new type of social event that many of us isolated, screen fatigued New Yorkers desperately need.
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The mastermind behind Willo events is Crystal Desai, who started throwing the concerts during the pandemic. Just before the world shut down, Desai lost her father unexpectedly, after which she says felt her brain was in "knots." She moved back home to Florida for a few months, where she experienced moments of intense overwhelm. The only thing that seemed to help her stay grounded, she tells Time Out New York, was whenever she put her headphones on and listened to music.
A few months later, she came back to New York and began throwing zoom concerts, where she wanted for other people to meditate on the healing powers of music. After pandemic restrictions lifted, she started having the concerts IRL, this time in unconventional venues like churches, photography studios, and other physical spaces that fostered reflection.
Now, Willo concerts tend to follow a tried-and-true format: there's a mingle hour before the concert, where people wear name tags, except instead of their names, they write the answers to a prompt they're given at the door. For example, one time the prompt was, "What would you tell an alien when they first land on earth?" and everyone's name tag was their answer to that question. It's a way to start conversations in a low-stakes way.
After the mingle hour, the featured musician performs during a 45-minute concert. While the music plays, attendees are encouraged to reflect on what the music makes them feel, either through journaling, drawing or even knitting. Whatever you do, it's all about being fully present. At the end of the concert, there is the option to share what you worked on. Desai says that it's also a way to create a synergetic exchange between the audience and the artists, who often don't hear people praise their work.
Once, Peter Collins, who's a pretty established musician, told her how much it meant to her to have people talk to him about what his music made them feel. “He said that he always doubts himself and wonders if he continues doing music," Desai says. "And that having this format where people are saying how much his music impacted them gave him this new energy and light to keep doing music.”
Willo events change location often, so make sure to follow it on Instagram to know when its next concert will be. All concerts are pay-what-you wish, and locations are revealed once you RSVP.