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Beethoven Behind Bars: Peru Rehabilitates Inmates With Music

Associated Press

   LIMA, PERU - Holding a violin, saxophone or clarinet with handcuffed
   hands, some two-dozen prisoners were transported in an armored bus to
   learn music alongside the symphony orchestra in the national theater in
   Lima, the Peruvian capital.

   The recent excursion is part of a pioneering project to rehabilitate
   criminals, some convicted of murder, robbery and drug trafficking. The
   goal is to create a prison symphony in time for when Peru celebrates
   its bicentennial in 2021, and things are on track: The inmates have
   already learned to play the theme from "Game of Thrones" and pieces by
   Beethoven.

   For Martin Reano, sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder, the
   chance to play an instrument is liberating.

   The classical music sessions are an "escape, something out of the
   ordinary," said 41-year-old Reano, who keeps a keyboard, three
   trombones, a trumpet and a bass guitar in his small prison cell. The
   instruments were left behind by others who did their time and left
   prison.

   Prisoners who attended the three-hour session at the Gran Teatro
   Nacional, witnessed by a team from The Associated Press and other
   journalists, were initially nervous. They listened in silence as
   Wilfredo Tarazona, head of a state music program, said the
   collaboration between the inmates and the orchestra was "an event
   without precedent" and that Peru's prison service, which normally buys
   padlocks, keys and shackles, had recently spent more than $150,000 on
   musical instruments.

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