“I was right in front of these huge glass windows,” says the musician, who plays a six-stringed electric cello. He had just talked to some patients about “what they were going through and how much the music meant to them,” he says, “and I just felt like I was channeling that whole kind of feeling and experience.”

The artist — full name William Wytold Lebing — also conducts weeklong workshops through a recreational arts program administered by the USO Warrior and Family Center for military members receiving medical treatment at Walter Reed. Playing for wounded veterans and their families for two years revealed a world Wytold didn’t know much about — it bridges a gap between the generally progressive arts community and more conservative military types, he says — but it’s also changed the way he composes music.

Wytold’s most recent album, Fireflies, Fairies & Squids, reflects his artistic shift. On this record, he says, “You can slow down and take everything in, and I think that mindset and my decision to put out that kind of gentler music was shaped by all of these experiences at Walter Reed.”

The song “Let the Light In” stemmed from that day in the America building. It represents a change for a musician who calls his earlier work “progressive classical” with live looping. Today his compositions are quiet and otherworldly — a departure from the classical/hip-hop fusion on his album Biggie, Beethoven, Busta, and Bach, not to mention his performances alongside the National Symphony Orchestra and superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

In the workshops, musicians, poets and visual artists offer veterans hands-on opportunities for creative expression. For Wytold, that might mean an introduction to playing the ukulele, or a workshop he calls “music theory demystified.” Some workshop participants have gone on to show their visual art or perform the guitar or cello they’ve learned.

“When you see people who aren’t talking to anyone and are shifty-eyed and jittery, and by the end of the week, they’ve come around to singing an original song, it’s such a rich, powerful experience,” Wytold says.

For some former soldiers, making art provides unexpected inner peace. According to Wytold, some have told him, “this is the first beauty I’ve found in the world since I deployed.”

Wytold performs an album-release show Dec. 17 at The GallÆrie pop-up gallery in Mount Pleasant. It will include an exhibition by self-taught mixed-media artist Joe Merrit, a Marine Corps veteran whose work came out of workshops at Walter Reed.

City on Silt – Above the Fray – Part I
Todd Simon – TIQOLA!
Fady D – No Fret
Star FK Radium – Blue Siberia
Red Sammy – I Got Creepy When Lou Reed Died
Hot Club of Baltimore – Coquette
Romantic States – Broken Clothes
Dove Lady – The Implication
John Haller – HOS Composition
ᴇʟᴅʀ. – droplet
Wytold – Giant Squids
Blueheart Revival – Stone Feathers
Misun – Promise Me
Terri Bocklund – I Don’t Need To Write You A Song
Jeremy Hyman – Couch
Imad Royal – Mixed Feelings (Feat. Blaise Railey)
Master David – Not Just Me
Todo Mas – Aftermath
Rex Riot – Liquidity
Flash Frequency – Time

FAR EXP – Get On Your Grind [Ardamus, RNL, Fleetwood – prod. by Decompoze]
The Stick Mob – Sugarcane Road
Wild Flag – Racehorse
Iritis – Monster
We Were Pirates – Into Thin Air
Hailu Mergia – Ambasel
Be Still, Cody – Wrong Right
Philip Lassiter – Set You Free
Dirdy Redzz – Beat ya Feet
K-Murdock – Heartache
Sun Machines – Doom Street
Moss Of Aura – Wheels
Xamin – Humidity ft. Alex Leipold, Rebecca Schrader
AndrewN – Night Falls
Dark Narrows – This Altar
Wytold – Do You Know?
Wes Swing – Blood Branches
Broto Roy – Never Enough Cake
Lo-Fang – Silver
Dan Deacon – Wham City

Disc Image – Icheb
Wes Swing – In a Station of the Metro
Soccer Team – Mental Anguish Is Your Friend
Fat Kneel – Hoarse Siren
Tony Kill – Being Considered [EP]
brushes – Mary
Tone – Bright Angel Falls
Rex Riot – Birds and Bees Feat. Misun
Melanie’s Magic Mellotron – Parasite
Wytold – Summersaults
Jail Solidarity – Lights Out
Joshua Rich – Rain
airøspace – Ikigami, the Ultimate Limit (prod. Budamonk)
Stephen Allen Kochersperger – The Quest
ᴇʟᴅʀ. – Glitter Gloo
Pax Musicana – Sixteen Nights
Fort Knox Five – Swinging On a Rhyme (Instrumental)
Smoke n’ Mangos – Birds
STROMA – Not My Chair
Tomás Pagán Motta – Love In Her Lies

Birdlips – Home
Medications – Brasil ’07
Wytold – Titania
Nick Hakim – Heaven
Drop Electric – Brooklyn’s Nightmare
Mud Rey – Never Satisfied
Sweetnova – Soldier
Will Eastman & Caleb L’Etoile – We Gon Make It All Happen
Lands & Peoples – Colleen’s Wedding
Middle Distance Runner – Brother John
Near Northeast – North Star
Mathugh – THe! Fearsome Twosome.
Warren Wolf – Natural Beauties
Pete Frassrand – Special K
Fugazi – Break
Shark Week – Desire
Damu the Fudgemunk – Overtime Intro – Instrumental
Raw Feels – Waiting / Wasting
Ben Dransfield – Nostalgia
More Humans – You’re a Liar

Sam Phillips – Differences
Tom Espinola – Gold Rush / Cherokee Shuffle
Alex Byrd – Jamais Vu
Wytold – Move On
Aaron Agre – Know-Say
Body Thief – Twin Flames
Mark Meadows – Know NowThe Rail Runners – The Takeback
June Gloom – dealer
Memphis Gold – Serves Me Right
Otis Infrastructure – Tearerdowner
The Soul Searchers – If It Ain’t Funky
Tideland – Desolate
Le Loup – Morning Song
B Side Shuffle – Gauntlet
Waltz Brigade – Strange Names
Mary Chapin Carpenter – Willie Short
Beach House – Lover of Mine
M.H. & His Orchestra – Cobblestone
Louis Weeks – Clementine

Jonathan Parker – Colin’s Song
Troy and Paula Haag – Maybe It Was Me
Lands – Polyonymous
We Were Pirates – Transmorgified
Birds and Buildings – East Is Fort Orthodox
Elijah Jamal Balbed – Lament For Booker
Justin Jones – So Much You’ll Never Know (make me the moon pt. 2)
Le Loup – To the Stars! To the Night!
Wytold – Folk Song of the Steel People
Three Man Soul Machine – Golden Thread
Akua Allrich – I Can’t Stand the Rain
Thievery Corporation – Indra
Marvin Gaye – Right On
Ephemeral Sun – Prism
Greenland – East of Eden Center
Bobby Thompson – Be Your Love
Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray – Election Year Blues
Beautiful Swimmers – Swimmers Groove
Hailu Mergia – Shilela
Annette Wasilik and the Wonder Band – You Are Free