Breaking Barriers

1.0 credits

Interested in having a transformative, hands-on experience using your musical skills to make a difference in the local Rochester community? Eager to use music as a bridge to connect people from different backgrounds and break down societal barriers? If so, this innovative class is for you! Using Hyperscore technology (developed at MIT), you will work together with a small group of incarcerated individuals a few blocks away at the Monroe County Jail to compose short pieces of chamber music for string quartet and percussion. Taught using the “Inside-Out” methodology, both “inside” (incarcerated) students and “outside” (ESM) students will be writing new compositions using the Hyperscore program. The class culminates with a performance of all of these new works by the “outside” students, presented for an audience of other incarcerated individuals and jail staff.