Charity number 1185310 Registered September 2019
"Music in the Ville brings us light. We feel better, different, like normal people"
ELMO's current project is Music in the Ville, bringing professional musicians of all genres into HMP Pentonville to perform and to run workshops and open mic sessions on the wings.
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"Really needed this in a stressful environment"​
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"Without Music in the Ville, my time in jail would have been a hell of a lot harder... you go back to the wings sort of elevated....
Conrad 2025
'Live music breaks down barriers and helps even in the most challenging of situations" Emma Dogliani Mitv CEO
"The men see me as a human and I see them as a human often we go back to the wing singing together, it's a beautiful thing" Senior Prison Officer 2025 HMP Pentonville
ELMO is making high-quality live music accessible to everyone. We work with a range of musicians and actively cast our performers from diverse community backgrounds.
By working with a broad range of musicians and musical genres, from rap to opera, the initiative creates a unique, cross-genre experience that resonates with the diverse backgrounds of the men at HMP Pentonville.
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Music in the Ville is bringing creative opportunities to men living in prison and building bridges between the men themselves and the staff working with them.
Music in the Ville is currently being supported by
Awards for All,
Hilden Charitable Foundation, Friends of Pentonville,
Postcode Society Trust, Leathersellers, Islington Council's Community Chest with Cripplegate Foundation,
SAGE publishing and the
Lucille Graham Trust.
We would also like to thank all our private donors .
We are grateful to our current funders for enabling us to continue with weekly ongoing sessions at Pentonville, which we have now managed uninterrupted for over two years. We currently hold a weekly class for up to 15 men and once a month we go out on the wings with our professional musicians performing and running Open Mic sessions for the men. On these days we reach around 400 men and staff giving everyone a boost.
Emma Dogliani, Director of ELMO said: "Our weekly music activities support prisoner wellbeing and lift the prison community in the most challenging circumstances."