About Musicambia

History

Musicambia is an educational program which brings professional musicians inside prisons to teach incarcerated people. Our Flagship Program, which began at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 2014, meets every other Saturday from September to June. Thirty-two incarcerated musicians currently attend morning and afternoon classes for 5 hours, and in doing so, foster teamwork, empathy, and a sense of responsibility to themselves as well as to their fellow students.

Today, we also operate the Jeptha Program (Mental Health Unit) and Summer Songwriting Workshop at Sing Sing. In addition, we now have programs at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, and in Kansas and California. We annually reach 125 incarcerated participants, as well as audiences of some 220 incarcerated people attending our concerts. Previously, we worked in Indiana and South Carolina: all told, Musicambia has created programs in 10 different facilities.

Teaching Artists

Musicambia's Teaching Artists are among the finest musicians and teachers in the nation. They hold positions in the Attacca Quartet and Imani Winds, and teach at Juilliard, Curtis, Princeton, and Peabody. They have won GRAMMY awards; collaborated with Pulitzer-Prize winners and Prince, and performed at Carnegie Hall. 50% are BIPOC, and their musical backgrounds span Western classical, jazz, hip-hop, and popular genres, as well as Indian classical ragas. One, Kenyatta Emmanuel, is also an Alumnus. He performed a full concert at Carnegie Hall the day he was released.

Programs

Media

Sing Sing Flagship Program

Lansing Biannual Songwriting Workshops

About our Goal

Our goal is to raise $45,000 by December 31, 2024 (the end of our anniversary year), to support our 5 core programs in the 2024-25 season:

$15,000 for Sing Sing

Benefit to 47 incarcerated musicians.
Increase Teaching Artists to 3 per session to bring student:teacher ratio down to ~10:1, over current 2 TAs per session, with ~15:1 ratio.
Increase summer programming following student feedback, including string quartet guest artist residency to perform student compositions

$10,000 for Bedford Hills

Benefit to 17 incarcerated musicians.
Initiate summer programming, following the Sing Sing Flagship program.

$7,500 for Lansing

Benefit to 20 incarcerated musicians.
Add an additional orientation day for our institutional partner, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where Musicambia Teaching Artists work with UMKC faculty and students in advance of the songwriting workshops.
Lengthen workshop times to 4 hours per day.

$7,500 for San Quentin

Benefit to 40 incarcerated musicians.
Add a 3rd Teaching Artist for lower the student:teacher ratio.
Lay the groundwork with our institutional partner, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), for a second workshop at San Quentin in Summer/Fall 2025.

$5,000 for Fishkill

Benefit to 20 incarcerated musicians.
Pilot songwriting workshop at new facility.

Musicambia 10-Year Anniversary Campaign

Raising money and awareness for the transformative power of music programs in prisons

Team Members