Pianos For People

Four St. Louis arts organizations are collaborating with St. Louis County’s Department of Justice Services to test a program offering violin or piano lessons to some incarcerated at the jail. Organizers say playing music can build life skills and help prepare inmates for life after release.

Last week, as Laurie Bowen watched movers transport her cherished upright piano from the front of her home to the trailer hitched to their truck, she grew a bit emotional. She wiped away tears. But they were happy ones, especially as she thought about what the instrument would mean for its new owner, 11-year-old piano student Amani Dugger, who lives in St. Louis.

There’s music in the air at Al Chappelle Community Center.The St. Louis Housing Authority facility, which serves residents of the adjacent Clinton-Peabody…

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 22, 2013: I recently watched footage of a grand piano being shoved off the back of a truck. It…