Coming up in the 2019–20 academic year, the Department of Music will launch prison-related programming that augments campus-wide initiatives relating to the Pitt Prison Education Project (PPEP).  Four new courses will be taught by ethnomusicology Professor Adriana Helbig.

During the fall semester, Helbig will lead Prison Sounds (MUS 2621),  a graduate course drawing on interdisciplinary approaches to analyze relationships between sound and incarceration, and  Global Hip Hop: Freedom and Justice (MUS 1327) analyzing the messaging of political hip hop in post/colonial, post/socialist, and neoliberal economies.

During the spring semester, Creative Ethnomusicology/PPEP (MUS 1328) will be open to 12 undergraduates who will engage with world music traditions in a classroom with 15 incarcerated men at the Fayette Correctional Institution (one hour from campus, transportation provided).

Finally, also in the spring semester, students with experience performing on bluegrass instruments will have the opportunity to explore traditional bluegrass themes of morality, poverty, and the law in Pitt’s new Bluegrass Ensemble.

Please direct all questions regarding Prison Sounds programming to Adriana Helbig, Associate Professor of Music, anh59@pitt.edu.

Download the official course flyer.