Transforming Lives through Music

Musicambia's Spring Benefit showed proof of how music brings love, forgiveness and hope to incarcerated men and women who are skeptical such things even exist

It’s not just about the music and art, it’s about the community, and the camaraderie…” -Musicambia Alumnus and Board Member Ivan Calaff

The name of Musicambia’s Spring Benefit Tuesday night was “Transforming Lives Through Music,” and the evening was a true depiction of how the nonprofit does exactly that.

Ivan Calaff (video above) spoke searingly from the heart of how Musicambia created the first “family” he ever knew after growing up in systems from foster care to juvenile detention centers to Rikers Island and, finally, spending a couple of decades at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

I have spoken to Ivan at length about his experiences as a very young child. We hiked together near my house upstate at a retreat we hosted for alumni of the program, and his stories were heartbreaking and at the same time gave me hope: Ivan is such a spectacular loving human, and he somehow realized it, finally, when he was seen and treated as such by other spectacular loving humans. God has mercy, if even after way too long a while.

Tears flow now as I write as they did last night during the songs and speeches of the faculty, alumni and current incarcerated recipients of this program that offers forgiveness and love to men and women whose felony charges can sometimes seem to define them to the world and, maybe even more destructively, to themselves.

To quote Ivan’s speech again, “Forgiveness. Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.”

Musicambia’s offering of love and forgiveness comes through the community and camaraderie of music—the making of it, the playing of it, the enjoyment of it. What better way there is I have yet to find. Music = love. Music = harmony.

And here is the proof: a group of men, gathered on a stage, performing compositions created by themselves or others while incarcerated, cut off from society, punished, banished because society failed them and they, in turn, lashed out at society.

Here is alumnus Shedrick Blackwell beautifully performing his composition, “Freedom.”

And alumnus Kenyatta Emmanuel, always a joy to hear, performing “What Is Left,” with alumnus Alfred Roberts on backup vocals.

Below, the wonderful Alfred Roberts performing his composition “You Are” with Kenyatta Emmanuel on backup vocals.

The men and women on stage playing with these brave transformed men are the teaching artists Musicambia has chosen with great care, some of whom worked directly with these gentlemen on these songs, including Brad Balliett on bassoon, Elliot Cole on keyboard and electric bass, Jan Esbra on guitar, Trina Basu on violin, and Karl Ronneburg on congas and drum set. These musicians have offered up instruments like peace flags to people ravaged by the wicked wars at play in the world. And it has worked.

Balliett, a longtime teacher for Musicambia and the program director for its program at San Quentin State Prison, opened the evening describing how he has repeatedly watched as initial skeptics—hardened folks who cannot imagine what might help—turn in to leaders of the musical communities Musicambia forms inside prisons, enticed initially by the simple request to help create a group anthem.

“This is what writing a song is? This is what you do? I can do this?”

Brad’s fellow faculty member and the longtime program director at Sing Sing, Elliot Cole, termed the goodness of music its ability to “turn disharmony into harmony,” to “put people in tune with themselves,” “to create art through pain.”

He played a song composed by current Sing Sing inmate Shane, who said of Musicambia’s collaborative music workshops that they “teach you how to be a human being, how to support the people around you, how to tap into your creativity.” Here is Elliot playing Shane’s song, “Take my Hand.”

And here is Brad playing currently incarcerated Paul’s composition “Orchid Blossoms” on bassoon:

I missed recording the piece “Stamped with Good Bones,” by Yoshi, still incarcerated at Sing Sing, but he is by all accounts a wildly prolific composer whose work will be performed soon at Carnegie Hall.

The opportunity to be present for these benefits and concerts, to understand the transformative nature of music in general and this beautiful program in specific, feels like a great gift. I have tried to pass it along in the hopes you might understand how powerful this program is and might feel compelled to donate or get involved yourself?!

You can still donate, at musicambia.org, and participate in the online auction at https://givebutter.com/c/Musicambia2024/auction.

To build community and camaraderie through music needs to happen so much more!! Thank you for your help! And thanks to Executive Director Shawn Jaeger, Operations Director Hajnal Pivnick and Founder and Artistic Director Nathan Schram for all your amazing work.

In Peace + Harmony,

Steph