Music in Prison: “I felt appreciated and useful.”

Me2/Orchestra performed for inmates in the Southern State Correctional Facility (Springfield, VT) earlier this month. I asked the musicians for their feedback on the experience of performing in prison. Here are a few of their responses:

Margie: “I was a little bit nervous when we first got to the prison, and a little bit more nervous when the inmates started coming in.  And then still a little bit more nervous during our first piece (the Overture to Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks).  I thought, I hope we haven’t misled these people in any way; maybe they were expecting some kind of concert other than a classical music concert.  But then they were so appreciative and so open with us and so nice to us after we finished that first piece.  Truly, by the end of the evening, I felt like these were normal guys who just happened to have made mistakes.  I was really happy to have spent some time relating to them, getting to know them a little bit better.”

Travis: “I have found that the most genuine way to erase stigma is to have people spend time face to face, providing them with the opportunity to realize their similarities and transcend their differences.  Both the Me2/ players and our enthusiastic audience members had that unique opportunity inside the Southern State Correctional Facility. We were able to use music to find common ground. Events like this performance help people who are in need of a positive identity forge one for themselves.”

Kate: “Playing at the prison was a remarkable experience: being able to interact with the attentive and interested prisoners and share a little bit of what is normal for us was great. I felt appreciated and useful. It was an honor to share this experience with the individuals in the Springfield prison.”

One of the most striking things I noticed in the comments and in conversations with nearly every orchestra member after the performance is that they all said how much fun it was to play for the inmates. Many remarked that this was one of the most enjoyable concerts they had ever played because they had the opportunity to truly engage with the audience in a very direct way.

The audience was invited to provide feedback and ask questions after every piece was performed. This rarely, if ever, happens in orchestral performance situations. Granted, it would be nearly impossible in a performance hall seating 1,500+ people, which is the setting in which most orchestral performances occur. The opportunity to have 22 musicians performing for an audience of 40 people in an intimate, classroom-type setting is very rare and truly special. The members of Me2/Orchestra walked away from the performance feeling “appreciated and useful” because they were not only playing music for an audience (which by itself has enormous value), but sharing a musical experience on a personal level and uncovering our commonalities as human beings.

Some might say that we, the members of Me2/Orchestra, learned a thing or two about stigma by interacting with the prisoners in Springfield. We know there are men inside that facility who committed serious crimes, and if we’d known the history of some of the men in our audience it might have scared us. Regardless, on a Saturday night in Vermont we sat together in a small room and focused on the things we have in common, including our love for music.

When we asked the prisoners if any of them played instruments, a young man in the front row raised his hand:

“I can play ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ on pretty much any instrument,“ he said. “I have a degree in music education.”

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Posted by Caroline Whiddon, Me2/Orchestra Executive Director