The listening body

'The Listening Body' is an extended concert experience with classical piano pieces, where meditation, reflection and deep listening take the audience on a journey that gradually opens a new way of experiencing music, and yourself. The concept was developed by pianist and 'listening guide' Annabel Guaita and meditation teacher Piotr Marcinów.

On this retreat we combine this way of listening with breathwork and calm yoga sessions in a safe, warm community. The retreat was first held in November 2025 and is designed to suit everyone, beginners and experienced alike, including people living with health challenges. You will also learn breathing techniques that can release tension in body and mind.

In July 2025 'The Listening Body' was invited to the Norwegian Yoga Festival, where it was one of the most popular and distinctive items, and it is on the programme again in 2026. In March, Annabel and Piotr worked with researchers from RITMO, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of Oslo, who measured participants' physical and emotional responses with wearable sensors (including pulse, breathing and bodily activation) to study how music and attentive listening affect the body.

Here, experiencing music is not seen as something that mainly happens in the head, but as a whole process where body, senses, feelings, memories and movement are woven together. The body listens, responds and makes meaning, often before language arrives.

We listen to both the parts and the whole: to details, transitions and connections, noticing how the music builds tension and releases it. Past participants have described it as stepping into the inner room of the music, where it opens up like a landscape.

This is a weekend to listen inwards, to yourself and to music in a completely new way.

Subject to change. Meals in italics.