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The San Antonio Symphony is providing some holiday cheer around Alamo City. John Clare has the story.
December 24, 2009 · It’s a Friday morning in December and a quartet from the San Antonio Symphony are not resting up from a rehearsal last night or preparing for a concert that evening. They are in jail.
Allyson Dawkins, Ken Freudigman, Gene Dowdy and Mary Ellen Goree are playing Christmas music for the inmates of Bexar County Correctional Facility.
“Well, I’ve been doing this as many years as they have been coming in.” That’s Rachelle Chidas, office assistant at the Bexar County Correctional facility.
For the 21st year, the musicians of the San Antonio Symphony are giving the gift of holiday music to the city of San Antonio through the Caroling Project. The program began in 1988 under the leadership of former violinist. They started with principal string players playing at three hospitals. Since then it has grown to include as many as forty musicians playing at twenty-five different institutions. Chidas says it’s a real treat for the inmates.
“Especially for the inmates, it is very special. I mean a bunch of them start crying when they hear the music, especially the women. I’ve seen them. They’re probably crying right now.”
Last Tuesday, thirty-one Symphony musicians, their children and students performed at the Juvenile Detention Center in San Antonio. They played traditional holiday music, including favorite prisoner requests such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Jingle Bells", and "The Little Drummer Boy."
Allyson Dawkins is principal violist of the San Antonio Symphony and organizes the concerts.
“The effect is a reaction of surprise, especially in the prisons, the inmates are very surprised to see people come walking down the halls carrying instruments. And I think they are a little surprised that some professionals have taken some time out of their day to do something caring for them. And I think it’s very helpful because 90% of these prisoners will be released back into society, and they will remember hopefully that someone did something caring for them.”
Dawkins says that it is a unique opportunity to both mentor and provide adolescent role models as they perform, and it has an effect on the players too!
“Well, Mary Ellen and I always say to each other this is the most fun thing that we do for the entire holiday season. It is very gratifying to be able in an informal way, to just walk into a room with our instruments, pull out books full of Jingle Bells, Rudolf and Feliz Navidad and be able to play those things at a drop of a hat.”
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