When violinist Jessica Cheng Hellwege and pianist Peter Henderson finished performing a piece by Austrian-born composer Fritz Kreisler with a dramatic flourish on Tuesday afternoon, they received an enthusiastic ovation.
Most of the audience members wore orange or khaki jumpsuits, with “CO JAIL” printed on the back.
The two St. Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians visited the women’s residence at the St. Louis County Justice Center in Clayton to announce Melodies of Hope, a music education program for people incarcerated there.
The pilot program will start in March and run for about three months. Only 10 people at the jail will get a chance to participate in the initial run, but jail officials hope to continue the program — and perhaps expand it — after a successful opening round.
“Just because they're behind bars, that doesn't mean you can't introduce something new to them in their lives and help them be a better person for themselves and for their families,” Justice Services Director Kito J. Bess said after the 20-minute performance, as the women residents of the jail snacked on cookies.
Melodies of Hope is a collaboration of the St. Louis County’s Department of Justice Services and several local arts organizations.
Participants will play five pianos donated by Pianos for People and take violin lessons taught by representatives from Suzuki Harmony STL. Students in Maryville University’s music therapy program will help lead music exercises. St. Louis Symphony Orchestra convened the other partners after Bess reached out to ask about possible music programs for people in jail.
Although donated equipment and expertise is an important piece of Melodies for Hope, the jail’s residents are collectively helping to pay for it — funds to purchase violins and pay for instructors will come from profits from the jail’s commissary, the usual funding source for programs there, a jail official said.
Organizers said music lessons, practice and performance can help incarcerated people build new skills, regulate emotions and even break bad habits while building new ones.
“Music uniquely accesses different parts of the brain,” said music therapist Dustin Politte-Bender, a graduate assistant at Maryville University.
“It can access different parts of the emotional side of the brain, where we tend to overthink things and have these learned, unhealthy responses,” Pollite-Bender said. “We can really get to where that's actually happening, rather than [repeating what] we’ve always done before.”
Prison Performing Arts added a hip-hop component to its roster of theater programs at St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center in 2023, but music programs for incarcerated people are not common. Representatives of St. Louis Symphony Orchestra plan to keep detailed notes throughout Melodies of Hope, and they aim to make observations that can help advance the field of music therapy for people in jail or prison.
The women on hand for Tuesday’s event showed enthusiastic support for the new program, and several said they plan to sign up and hope to be chosen for participation.
Among them is Ashley Lazowski.
“Being here isn't easy. Being away from my family, it makes it really hard, especially with the holidays. This can give us hope and help it go by faster. Then we can teach [music] to our family,” Lazowski said, “and show them how we’ve changed. This gives us hope for a new life, and to not go back to the old life that we had.”
A representative from Pianos for People said the organization would like to connect participants in Melodies of Hope with opportunities to play piano after their release.
If the trial run is successful, organizers hope to open the program to more participants and possibly put additional instruments into the mix.
