Liberation through music – in prison
Clanging doors, public announcements, loud conversations through cell walls: The daily sounds of prison life are jarring. Amid such dissonance, a variety of music education initiatives are introducing incarcerated individuals to new tones – those of harmony, concord, and coordinated rhythm. In the process, inmates are tapping their feet – and tapping into their creativity. They’re embracing moments of joy and of self-reflection.
“I fell in love with opera at Sing Sing,” wrote Joseph Wilson in The Marshall Project news site. At the prison in New York state, he participated in Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program, learning to lean in to the sounds of his surroundings. He composed an aria later performed by an award-winning opera singer. In doing so, he confronted the harm his crimes had caused, their roots in an abusive childhood, and his responsibility to share lessons.
For many in prison, creating music with compassionate teachers can be deeply transformative. One such tutor, Dante Coluccio, has taught at a New Jersey youth correctional facility where young adults learn about instruments, music theory, and sound technology – as well as the discipline and shared decision-making that a group performance demands. “With opportunity, these men can find out who they really are,” Mr. Coluccio said.
In the United Kingdom, a charity offers in-prison music programs and additional training and business support to released ex-offenders who want to pursue a music career. In the central African nation of Cameroon, a nonprofit co-founded by a former detainee produces albums of music created by those in prison. Jail Time Records offers studio facilities both inside and near one port city’s overcrowded central prison.
The universal language of music doesn’t just transform the outlook of those behind bars. Volunteer teachers and artists also find liberation – from preconceptions. Music professor Mark Katz co-wrote “Rap and Redemption on Death Row” with Alim Braxton, who is on death row. The collaboration was “life-changing for me,” Dr. Katz said at an event at Brandeis University. It deepened “my appreciation of the power of music, of the possibilities of redemption and self-actualization, and of the humanity of incarcerated people.”
Such evolution and elevation of thought needn’t be surprising. As acclaimed musicologist and author Daniel Chua has said, “Music is a call toward relationship, toward a new understanding of what it means to be in the world and to be with one another.”
