Sing Sing Voices<\/a>. Featuring a wide array of songs (jazz, rock, hip-hop, contemporary classical, and un-categorizable) written by Musical Connections participants, these playlists focus on three themes: Inner Transformation, Exploring Identity, and Reimagining Change.\u00a0<\/p>\nCelebrated artists who have lent their time and passion to the project\u2014opera star Joyce DiDonato, Afro Latin jazz great Arturo O\u2019Farrill, and acclaimed rapper Common\u2014introduce these selections and discuss how being involved with the program has enhanced their own lives. <\/p>\n
Common calls his experiences with Musical Connections \u201ca gift,\u201d adding that \u201cbeing able to go to Sing Sing and connect with the human beings in there, introducing somebody to something they never knew existed, and then for them to be able to join you later is a true journey.\u201d <\/p>\n
The impact of Musical Connections is impressive. Over a decade and a half, music workshops have yielded more than 300 original songs performed by participants and professionals at over 50 concerts at Sing Sing. The recidivism rate for alumni is significantly lower than for the general population\u2014\u201cby triple digits,\u201d according to Ayanna Cole, Carnegie Hall\u2019s director of social impact programs. There is an alumni advisory committee as well as an alumni band, The Freedom Trap, and three alums have since landed jobs at the Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But those numbers don\u2019t tell the whole story. The individual outcomes are even more profound. \u201cThe men talk pretty openly about the ways that creating music and community at Sing Sing have contributed to their personal growth,\u201d says Cole. \u201cTheir family members have said the same thing. I\u2019ve had spouses tell me that the music helped to open conversations. And I\u2019ve had men say the process of making music has made them better fathers. Those types of examples are holistic. They\u2019re harder to document, but they\u2019re probably even more important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Change is a word that comes up frequently when talking to Musical Connections participants about the benefits of the program. According to Paul, who is still at Sing Sing, \u201cI want my music to show that it helped me change my life and gave me a new outlook on how I live my life now.\u201d Meanwhile Ivan, an alum and member of the Musical\u00a0Connections Advisory Committee, says that \u201cthis body of music is also about the joy of change \u2026It\u2019s an opportunity\u2014a very rare opportunity\u2014to pour some light into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many songs, the writers reckon with who they were before incarceration, who they are while composing, and who they hope to become\u2014particularly once they leave Sing Sing. Creating music is intertwined with their \u201cprocess of healing, seeking forgiveness, and thinking about ways to repair damage done and be a different person than the one who was arrested,\u201d says Cole, who worked as a television producer and social worker before joining Carnegie Hall a decade ago. \u201cTheir songs pour out of places of deep regret. Most of the men in the program were approximately 17 years old at the time of their arrest. Now they\u2019re in their 40s. It\u2019s clear from the process of music making that there\u2019s a journey of maturation and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The professional artists who work with these men also find themselves moved by the experience. DiDonato recalls that the first time she visited Sing Sing and sang an aria, one of the residents approached her to say, \u201cI didn\u2019t know opera existed before you came here. Now I want to know everything there is to know about it and I have to write one.\u201d A few years later, she returned and they performed a duet from an opera he composed.<\/p>\n
Cole hopes these stories and the playlists, much like the Oscar-nominated movie Sing Sing about the theatre program created by Rehabilitation Through the Arts, will give skeptics a chance to see how the arts can play an integral role in preparing incarcerated individuals for successful re-entry. \u201cFor anyone who wonders why Carnegie Hall is even doing this, people pay for the crimes they committed and then they come home,\u201d says Cole. \u201cWho do you want to have returned to society? You want someone to come home who\u2019s going to support their family, contribute to their community, and help all of us develop a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic is the most unbelievably beautiful thing, but it\u2019s just a vehicle,\u201d says O\u2019Farrill. \u201cThe most important thing is to try and understand others\u2014for people to see and be seen \u2026 and heard.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Carnegie Hall launched a music program for incarcerated men at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-251246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}