I am seeking support for Music Liberation, a new project for inmates at the Youth Detention Center, Bastrop County Jail, and Federal Prison near Bastrop, Texas. It is a humanities-based program that uses genealogy, journal writing, and literature all in conjunction with music to bring about healing.

Using music as a tool and guide, I will seek to bring each participant back to their own particular “door of no return” – the point at which their lives turned from light to darkness – music will be the path to that door. In one series of workshops, for example, the inmates will find the names of songs their great grandparents sang, and the names of the songs their victims sang. They will then learn the songs and analyze them historically and thematically. Ultimately, I would like to introduce live musical performances of these songs. In this project and others in the program, the participation of the victims and the families of the inmates will be an important part of the healing process.

I have worked in this capacity before at the men’s facility in Bethlehem, PA and the Franklin Pre-Release Women’s Correctional Facility in Columbus, Ohio; I am excited by the idea of this new series of workshops, which I seek to use as a pilot for a permanent program. This pilot will last 3 months and include two 2-hour workshops a week.

Funds will be used to employ an assistant to organize and record the workshops. $10,000 is our initial goal to launch the project, but all additional funds raised up to $25,000 will greatly aid in the success and robustness of the programs.

Genealogy and music will be the main tools used in the workshops, which will be divided into three phases.

Phase One:

In the first workshop meeting I will ask the residents to determine and contact the oldest living member of their family. From this point we will begin to make connections with the resident to his/her family from as far back as possible to the present. Having a sense of your past helps to better understand your present. How to write music will also be introduced. Inmates will be asked to write poems, stories and lyrics to songs about their lives.

Phase Two:

After information has been collected about family history it will be thoroughly discussed, and preserved. The words to their songs and poems will be set to music.

Phase Three:

In phase three the poems would be collected and printed. Music composed by residents would then be performed by professional musicians. Resident musicians will be allowed to perform them as well.

Bio Sketch:

I have taught and performed at the Bethlehem men’s facility in Bethlehem, PA and at the Franklin Pre-Release Correctional facility in Columbus Ohio.I have also taught extensively at The University of Pennsylvania and lectured at Harvard University.

*This project will also inform a new musical composition, Can You Hear God Crying, which will help people reclaim their beauty as human beings and remind them that they are divine.

Thank you for your support.