The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and perceived pedagogical utility of a multidimensional weighted performance assessment rubric used in Kansas state high school large-group festivals. Data were adjudicator rubrics (N = 2,016) and adjudicator and director questionnaires (N = 515). Rubric internal consistency was moderately high (.88). Dimension reliability ranged from moderately low (W = .47) to moderate (W = .77). Total score reliability was moderately high (W = .80) and rating reliability was moderate (W = .72). Findings suggested that reliability on the whole was within the range of previously researched music performance assessment tools. Questionnaire results suggested that the rubric provided a better instrument for justifying ratings and more detailed descriptions of what constituted acceptable performances than previously researched nonrubric forms; hence, adjudicators and directors perceived the rubric as possessing improved pedagogical utility.

Based on theories that low self-esteem is related to criminal activity (Oser, 2006) and high self-esteem derives from competence and worthiness (Harter, 1985; Mruk, 2006), this study measured changes in community singers’ attitudes toward prisoners and documented changes in prisoner singers’ perceptions of their social competence. Participants included 22 prisoners and 22 community members over a 12-week choral program in a medium-security Midwest state prison. Community members completed an Attitudes Toward Prisoners Scale (ATPS) before meeting the prisoners and after the group’s concert. All answered open-ended questions summarizing the choir experience. Results indicated a significant difference (p < .01) between pre- and post-measurements on the community singers’ ATPS. Two categories emerged from the open-ended answers: relationships with others and self-gratification. Five subcategories under relationships with others emerged from prisoner singers’ data: feeling respected, getting along with others, making friends, connecting to something outside prison, and improving family relationships.

We examined pedagogical strategies for facilitating and developing songwriting skills with 17 males incarcerated at a U.S. medium security prison. We also investigated the participants’ sense of self-worth, purpose, and social adjustment related to their participation in the songwriters’ workshops. The songwriting sessions spanned over two 13-week, 60-minute workshops and one nine-week 90-minute workshop, totaling 35 weeks. Using grounded theory procedures, we analyzed four types of data: 42 sets of original lyrics, written reflections from three instructors, transcriptions of four workshop sessions, and narrative data from participants, totaling 127 single-spaced pages. Our findings indicated that the collaborative and social nature of the songwriting workshops provided a supportive atmosphere where participants generated new songs for enjoyment and expression. Participants wrote about struggles and hardships, especially relationship problems, and our data suggested that the discussions about song topics helped them cope with their incarceration. Implications for music education are discussed.

Choral singing in prisons can help incarcerated individuals identify as returning citizens instead of felons. Shadd Maruna argues that while many legal and penal rituals exist to convince individuals to identify as “offenders,” few such rituals are in place to reconnect formerly incarcerated people to identify as community members outside of prisons. Maruna describes successful reintegration rituals as symbolic and emotive, repetitive, community-based, and infused with a dynamic of challenge and achievement; they give form to political and social processes that enable successful reentry. I maintain that choral singing models positive reintegration rituals that promote prosocial connections between returning citizens and the societies to which they are restored.

Elvera Voth has been a role model and mentor for me since I first saw her conduct the East Hill Singers in 2003. After her professional choral career in Anchorage, Alaska, she returned to her native state of Kansas with an idea to teach prisoners to sing. In 1995 she founded the East Hill Singers, a men's chorus comprised of minimum security prisoners incarcerated at the Lansing Correctional Facility and of male community volunteer singers. After Robert Shaw led a singalong to support her prison choir, the non-profit organization Arts in Prison, Inc. began in 1998 in order to help develop other arts-based courses for prisoners. In this interview she reflects on her time conducting the East Hill Singers and the West Wall Singers (a chorus in the maximum unit at Lansing), prison education and her newest community music project.