The Score | Prison Songs

For the past five years, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has been getting rave reviews from a different kind of audience: incarcerated and at-risk youth at Illinois correctional facilities and youth centers. In September, Riccardo Muti and CSO musicians made their seventh such visit, to the Illinois Youth Center in Warrenville, with CSO Principal Percussion Cynthia Yeh, Principal Tuba Gene Pokorny, and flutist Jennifer Gunn, as well as soprano Laura Wilde and baritone Anthony Clark Evans. They performed Mozart and Puccini, talked about music, and gave lessons on how to blow into a tuba mouthpiece. The program is part of the CSO’s Negaunee Music Institute, which also has coordinated programs at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Center and the Illinois Youth Center-Chicago. In spring 2016, a “Music in Prisons” residency is planned with Illinois Youth Center-Chicago and the Chicago Child Care Society. In September, Muti was honored at an event hosted by the Juvenile Justice Initiative, which recognized his commitment to the program.