Music Making In U S Prisons

Traces the history of music programs in U.S. prisons and engages in dialogue with current programs to hypothesize how music functions in carceral settings. The authors recommend principles to support personal and social growth for people experiencing incarceration and build social awareness of the harmful aspects of the prison industrial complex

The U.S. incarceration machine imprisons more people than in any other country. Music-Making in U.S. Prisons looks at the role music-making can play in achieving goals of accountability and healing that challenge the widespread assumption that prisons and punishment keep societies safe. The book’s synthesis of historical research, contemporary practices, and pedagogies of music-making inside prisons reveals that, prior to the 1970s tough-on-crime era, choirs, instrumental ensembles, and radio shows bridged lives inside and outside prisons. Mass incarceration had a significant negative impact on music programs. Despite this setback, current programs testify to the potency of music education to support personal and social growth for people experiencing incarceration and deepen social awareness of the humanity found behind prison walls. Cohen and Duncan argue that music-making creates opportunities to humanize the complexity of crime, sustain meaningful relationships between incarcerated individuals and their families, and build social awareness of the prison industrial complex. The authors combine scholarship and personal experience to guide music educators, music aficionados, and social activists to create restorative social practices through music-making.

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of what has been achieved in the field to date and what might be expected in the future. This handbook addresses community music through five focused lenses: contexts, transformations, politics, intersections, and education. The contributors to this handbook outline community music's common values that center on social justice, human rights, cultural democracy, participation, and hospitality from a range of different cultural contexts and perspectives.

"A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America’s prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author’s own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions—including solitary confinement—these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art. As the movement to transform the country’s criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century."

Across the world, performing arts programmes are increasing in number, scope and professionalism. They attract increasing academic and media attention. Theoretical and applied research, organizational evaluation reports, documentary films and journalism are detailing prison arts and creating recognition that this body of work is becoming a valued part of the correctional enterprise. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests music, theatre, poetry and dance can contribute to prisoner wellbeing, management, rehabilitation and reintegration. Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives explores prison arts in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Chile, and creates a new framework for understanding its practices.

"The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education addresses ways in which music teachers and students interact as co-learners and forge authentic relationships with one another through shared music-making. Concepts of care addressed in this Handbook stem from philosophies of relationship, feminist ethics, musical meaningfulness, and compassionate music teaching. Authors highlight the essence of authentic relationships and shared experiences between teachers and learners, extending previous conceptions of care to meet the needs of contemporary music learners and the teachers who care for, about, and with them. Handbook authors offer approaches to care that intersect with a broad range of topics set within the context of music teaching and learning, including: anti-racism and anti-sexism; bullying and harassment prevention; critical perspectives; dialogic education; disability/ability; eco-justice; gender identity and sexual orientation; inclusivity of a range of musical styles and genres; intercultural sensitivity; mindfulness; musical creativity; online/remote learning; nonviolent communication; pedagogy as a culturally sustaining force; self-care; social emotional learning; transgressive pedagogy for critical consciousness; and trauma-sensitive pedagogies. Principal handbook themes include (a) philosophical perspectives on care and music education; (b) co-creating caring relationships; (c) caring for wellbeing and human flourishing; and (d) care, social activism, and critical consciousness. The handbook offers a comprehensive overview of literature relating to care in music and education, along with practical implications that are applicable to a broad array of music-learning settings"--

"The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing shows in abundant detail that singing with others is thriving. Using an array of interdisciplinary methods, chapter authors prioritize participation rather than performance and provide finely grained accounts of group singing in community, music therapy, religious, and music education settings. Themes associated with protest, incarceration, nation, hymnody, group bonding, identity, and inclusivity infuse the 47 chapters. Written almost wholly during the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, the Handbook features a section dedicated to collective singing facilitated by audiovisual or communications media (mediated singing), some of it quarantine-mandated. The last of eight substantial sections is a repository of new theories about how group singing practices work. Throughout, the authors problematize the limitations inherited from the western European choral music tradition and report on workable new remedies to counter those constraints"--

Takes the reader inside the walls of a medium-security prison and offers a glimpse at how music and the arts are offering second chances to the incarcerated. In a place often defined by trauma and control, a performing chorus composed of inmates and volunteers creates a community where healing, atonement and growth can occur.