LIMA, OHIO (WLIO) - “If you can’t come to us for music, we will bring the music to you,” says Elizabeth Brown-Ellis, Ex. Dir. of the Lima Symphony Orchestra.
Since 2018, the Lima Symphony Orchestra has been bringing the music to Allen/Oakwood Correctional Institute as part of their “Healing through Music” program, which is designed to help those with addiction and mental health issues with the power of music. Over the years, the inmates were able to participate in drum circles and listen to string quartets and brass ensembles, but Sunday was the first time that they could feel the effect of the whole orchestra.
“And to have the Lima Symphony take time out to come in here, it really helps our morale, I would say. As you know, being in prison can be a depressing place. But I think that music really restores us; it energizes us; it's very healing," says Kevin Karszewski, inmate and pianist for the church choir and praise team band at AOCI.
“Our director is a big proponent of bringing in a sense of normalcy. You couldn’t get any more normalcy then bringing in the Lima Symphony Orchestra to work with these guys. It’s just a tremendous opportunity,” says Jim Hobbs, Deputy Warden of Administration, AOCI.
Composer Kevin Kohler wrote a piece while he was an inmate in the Ohio prison system. Now paroled, he came back to Allen Correctional to hear the Symphony perform his work for the first time. And like a lot of composers, the piece is inspired by what was going on at the time.
“I kind of wrote it back in 2012, when I was at London Correctional to commemorate. They were doing some sentencing reform at the time, and it’s a piece to inspire and offer hope to residents and to people who were actually making the reform,” says Kevin Kohler.
And the positive impact of the orchestra and their "Healing through Music" program will be felt at Allen Oakwood for years to come.
“We will continue to bring quartets, ensembles here until we cannot anymore,” says Brown-Ellis. “But I don’t see that relationship ever ending, and I hope this is the first of many full orchestra performances. It’s ambitious, and I cannot imagine the mountains they moved to make is possible tonight. But I hope it is just the beginning.”
