New program seeks to rehabilitate Sonoma County jail inmates by teaching music composition

The hums and harmonies from the string quartet flowed up and down, and the picks and plucks sharply exited the speakers into a classroom at the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility.

Eight incarcerated men and a small crowd listened March 25 as a quartet — Juilliard School students on two violins, a cello and a viola — performed eight pieces, each composed by one of the inmates.

Fluttery movements and fluid melodies dissipated wanting, dissonant chords and bled into sharp and distinct dynamics. The composers had written some comments, including “cartoony” and “life is risky but never boring,” in their sheet music that dictated the vibe and emotions to be expressed in the music.

The performance in New York City was broadcast live to the Santa Rosa jail via Zoom.

The students’ pieces were the culmination of about nine weeks of work through a program called Music for the Future, which teaches incarcerated individuals about live music, composition and the life and compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven. The underlying goal is to help them gain skills to better themselves so they don’t return to jail after being released.

The music was played in no particular order. The inmates were composers in this moment and looked down at their music to follow the movements. Some twiddled their thumbs, gripped their faces with their hands and bounced legs in anticipation. Some teared up. Some smiled when the crowd clapped.

Eleven students were selected for the class. Each was already enrolled in Five Keys, a nonprofit charter school that offers high school and some higher learning courses in the jail. Each actively participated in classes.

They learned the basics in week one. They had written a short piece of music by the end of week three.

Since then, they wrote nonstop and stayed committed to class. Only one had to leave because of an infraction.

That was an accomplishment. And on March 25, they celebrated.

‘Music is my life’

For the past two and a half months, the men in the program devoted hours of their week to classical music. But the journey began later last year when Sonoma County jail administrators expressed interest in the class, offered through the nonprofit Project: Music Heals Us.

The nonprofit, founded in 2014, provides live music and music education to marginalized communities, such as people who are homeless or incarcerated, with limited access to the art form.

The organization reached out to Five Keys in November 2023 and soon after the planning began. Students were in class by January.

The Edith String Quartet, and two other instructors visited in the third week. They played a concert in the jail for the men, Sheriff’s Office staff and about 60 others.

After the concert, the men and musicians talked about what they noticed in the music. One student remarked he liked when they “go soft and then raise up,” referring to dynamics, and another said he noticed the kind of dance the musicians did as they played.

One said he loved when they picked at the strings, “like a guitar but not.”

The week continued in this pattern: listening and then learning and the final step, writing, said in-person instructor and composer Ben Sellick.

Each day was a different topic: melody, rhythm, Beethoven history, harmony and texture, meaning the distribution of music throughout the quartet. The class focused on Beethoven because he created some of his most famous work after he went through some of his biggest struggles, including losing his hearing, Sellick said.

The students progressed rapidly. One moment that solidified this growth was when a student identified a specific type of chord immediately after the quartet played it. That same student had never been to a concert before that week.

“It's a challenging concept even for trained musicians and he just got it immediately,” violinist Gabrielle Despres said. “I think it was just really beautiful.”

By the end of the week, each of the 11 men had written a short piece.

The songs demonstrated artistry that seemed advanced even for experienced musicians. They had lulls and harmonies and smart pacing and were filled with emotion.

One student, who couldn’t wrap his head around music notes, wrote calligraphy on the staff for the quartet to interpret.

Another student composer surprised the audience and students with his skill.

“Hey, let this guy out of jail,” one of the other students shouted after his music was done.

“Music is my life,” the composer later said, adding that he didn’t know how to read or write music before the class. And he was grateful.

One said, “I’m happy I got arrested when I did,” so he could experience the class. “I can’t believe how much we’ve learned.”

They had all bonded. It led to some silly encounters — such as the quartet playing “Yeah” by Usher for one of the students — and to some deeper realizations.

Jeremy Klein, a viola player, said he still remembers when a student said the most powerful thing the quartet did was show up and care.

“I was coming in with that attitude, to some degree that the most valuable thing we were offering was teaching music,” Klein said. “The music was just a vehicle to bring love and care and community connection into a space that was missing it.”

After the in-person training, students still had six more weeks of online instruction.

They met for 90 minutes on Mondays and Tuesdays and spoke with Dana Martin, Music for the Future program manager, and Ben Grow, conductor and Juilliard professor.

“The students at Sonoma were among the most interested and dedicated that I've seen in any sort of level of teaching,” Grow said. “I was really astonished, impressed and certainly honored to be working with them… At the end of each class, it sort of felt like the class could have begun again, right then with all the questions and the general interest that they had.”

But it wasn’t just their time in class that changed, program deputy Deanna Jordan said.

Outside of class, they tried to keep out of trouble and they spent time writing their music.

One of the men had gotten into trouble before class began and was facing a punishment that could interrupt his class participation. He wrote three letters asking for the consequences to be pushed until after he finished composing.

The man had almost quit after the first week.

They also had to make sacrifices to be in the class that, just like all jail programming, occurs during time out of their cells that can be spent doing other activities, such as speaking with family. The timing has discouraged participation in other programming, Jordan said.

“It was a real fight to get people to stay in classes at some points. It’s not always the motivator that we want it to be,” she said. “But this class obviously was, because they weren't getting in trouble and they weren't skipping class just because they wanted to sit in their room.”

Only three students didn’t finish the class — one was transferred to prison, another was released and one was let go because of a rule break.

They also talked about the class with jail staff, including Jordan and retired Lt. Liana Whisler, who also helped facilitate the program.

One student told Whisler that through writing music about his childhood he was able to better process the trauma he had endured.

“It was profound for him,” Whisler said.

Whisler said based on the success of the program, they plan to bring Music for the Future back to the jail for the women’s housing module in 2025. Jordan also has taken steps to possibly bring more live music into the facility.

Rehabilitation

The men who participated in the program were a wide range of ages and personalities and had varied backgrounds.

They were selected because of their enrollment in Five Keys, their active participation in class and their record of good behavior while in custody.

Jordan, who helped select the students, said some had been convicted of more serious crimes.

One had a history of drug-related convictions beginning in 2005. One pleaded guilty in 2016 to a felony of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant. Another had a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury filed against him in Oct. 2023.

Normally, individuals who are housed in the maximum security area cannot leave their housing module to take a class. Administrators in this case focused on their record within custody, their willingness to be in the class and their efforts to improve themselves, Whisler said.

“Depending on the level of the felony that they've been charged with, they're not eligible to be in a classroom with our civilian staff without correctional staff,” Jordan said. “So we had to petition the assistant sheriff, who was actually open to allowing these incarcerated persons who generally aren't able to attend this kind of programming.”

Whisler emphasized that safety and security are always top of mind when considering these steps.

“Everybody deserves a chance to have art, to have music as a possibility for expression, for inspiration, for curiosity, for education,” Martin said. “It is a tool for healing.”

While the program’s goal is to teach music and how to write it, it’s through the pursuit of that final project that students are given tools to help them cope and work toward rehabilitation. Hopefully so they never return to jail, as some of the individuals in the class already have.

These skills include the ability to be open-minded, to accept criticism and praise and to use music as a way to express emotions, Martin said.

“Studies have shown that (classical music) is proven to help people with their mental and emotional health,” Whisler said. “It was about giving them hope, and giving them something to look forward to. Because we've never, in the 29 years I've been at this facility, ever done this type of a program.”

Sellick said a quote from Russian writer and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn best represented his time in the Santa Rosa jail: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”

“Our students were on the inside, and we are on the outside. But that is not where the true line of people runs,” Sellick said. “All of us have that light in us and that darkness in us.”

About 583 out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. is incarcerated, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. That equals about 1.9 million residents. And stats such as these, Sellick said, ran through his head continuously during and after his time at the jail.

Following the in-person residency, the quartet talked about how their experience with the men changed them. Many of them shed tears during the final in-person class and shared varying emotions — happiness, pain, sadness, joy.

In response, a few of the men asked why, what had they done to help the people who had shown up to help them? Because it may just be what helps them to never return to jail.

Klein said, “I think what you taught me is —”

“— to not give a (expletive) a bit,” a student interjected, to a few laughs.

Klein smiled and finished his thought, “ — the value of being your whole self.”

The next Hans Zimmer

After each piece was played on the last day, members of the quartet commented on aspects of the pieces they liked.

In one, they liked how the words written next to the music corresponded to how the piece was played. When it said “life is lonely” there was a solo, when it said “life is community” everyone played together.

Some pieces were discussed for the emotions they evoked — the sad, the happy, the bittersweet. In others, the dynamics were praised for their dramatic crescendos and decrescendos.

Some of the biggest praises also came from Zoom comments.

“Thank you for this,” one said. “A wonderful way to start the day.”

Another said, “That’s my Jacob.”

A student smiled. It was his mom.

Then the concert was finished. The class and its instructors enjoyed coffee and baked goods.

Embossed certificates and school credit recognition were handed out. The inmates got to touch them but won’t see them again until they are released.

Class was almost over, but students said they would remember the lessons and the time invested in them.

Some said they will continue to write music.

“I hope to continue with this myself,” one student said, smiling. “Maybe I’m the next Hans Zimmer, who knows?”

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @madi.smals.