The story behind Music in the Ville

Emma Dogliani’s interest in prisons began after decades as an opera singer and organiser of community music events under the name of East London Metropolitan Opera. Rehearsing near Pentonville one day, she found herself wondering what life was like behind its forbidding walls. Inspired in part by her grandparents’ work in penal reform during the 1930s, Emma became a Prison Visitor in 2017 and the experience changed her. Encouraged by the men who had never met an opera singer, let alone heard one live, she organised a concert inside the prison. The response from both performers and audience was electric, and it quickly became clear the men themselves needed and wanted to be part of the music-making.

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With the help and encouragement of Sara Lee of the Irene Taylor Trust, Emma registered East London Metropolitan Opera as a charity and created Music in the Ville as its flagship project. A grant from the Hilden Fund enabled a 10-week pilot. Since the success of that first pilot in 2017, with the support of generous donors and grants, Music in the Ville has grown over the years into weekly year-round sessions. 

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One of Music in the Ville’s most distinctive developments is its ‘on the wings’ work—performances taken directly to residential wings where most men spend the majority of their time due to overcrowding and staff shortages. By bringing music to them, the team can reach hundreds of men in a single day and help lift the atmosphere for both prisoners and officers. These sessions also offer a rare moment of shared humanity, with staff and men often joining in and discovering each other anew through music.

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For Emma and her fellow musicians, the project has been profoundly rewarding. Far from being a soft alternative to punishment, these sessions challenge the men to step outside their comfort zone and sing, write music and perform, not only in front of their peers but to an audience of visitors from the outside. Music in the Ville shows how a simple act—sharing music—can support the long-term wellbeing of everyone within the prison walls.