storyteller // adventure seeker
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship gifted Wheeler the unique opportunity to celebrate, practice and compose music in vibrant communities and cultures worldwide. The rules of the Watson Fellowship are threefold: You cannot go anywhere you have ever been before, you must stay outside of the United States for more than a year, and you must go alone. Inspired by the enduring sense of belonging he sought in unfamiliar places, he learned to pursue new perspectives, celebrate human diversity and communicate complex experience through art.
Filmmaker // Artist // composer
Wheeler learned the ropes of the entertainment industry and ultimately served as a creative director for an Addy, Emmy and Promax gold award winning production team at Stephen Arnold Music. His work now appears nationally and internationally across culturally and politically diverse platforms like the Atlantic Online, the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, the Clio Awards, the Addy’s, Adult Swim, TBS, Fox News, ABC and more.
"Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself -- must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, History
"So the world happens twice --
once what we see it as;
second, it legends itself deep,
the way it is."
- William Stafford
A travel journal reads:
“I have come to view the earth and its people as a solitary whole, unconfined by countless borders, cultural differences, plots of soil and ocean waves. The world exists wholly, now for the first time, in a way my mind is insufficient to grasp. I cannot know where the next six months will take me. Why should I expect anything less from my own life?"
Wheeler’s original music inspired by the Watson Fellowship can be heard here.
