PRISONS OF NOTE
- Completed
- 09.05.2022–31.05.2026
Mapping music and nuances in penal exceptionalism from the periphery.
Illustration: Áine Mangaoang & Noah Krogsholm
About the project
Music is an integral and vital part of human life in times of joy and triumph, as well as in times of crisis and isolation. PRISONS OF NOTE will investigate the experiences of, circumstances surrounding, and approaches to music and imprisonment in the lives of prisoners, staff, and stakeholders.
The project will examine the relationship between prison music – including music education, music therapy, music-making and listening initiatives – and the sociocultural, political, ethical and aesthetic implications of this creative practice from multiple perspectives. Using an international, comparative approach grounded in empirical research, the project maps the nuances and asymmetries in penal exceptionalism from smaller, peripheral jurisdictions within the global West, to untangle the ways music is used –and is useful– in prison.
PRISONS OF NOTE builds on recent scholarship from musicology and comparative penology, drawing from models of prison ethnography, sociology and ethnomusicology, led by a musicologist PI and a diverse research team of criminologists & sociologists. This significant, ambitious project compares prison music experiences in smaller jurisdictions of penal exceptionalism – places that have been largely overlooked in comparative criminological and musicological discourse in favour of an Anglo-American bias.
As we tackle rising incarceration rates around the world, this project is unique in that it collects qualitative data from prison case studies in Norway, Iceland and the Republic of Ireland in order to contribute new, interdisciplinary knowledge on how music is used and is useful in prisons from a peripheral perspective. Thus PRISONS OF NOTE will change how we study music and imprisonment, from isolated, single-nation case studies to connected, transcultural experiences that transcend national borders, that gives a special voice to experiences of penal exceptionalism and prisons of note.
The project addresses the central questions:
- What is the relationship between music and imprisonment in cultures of penal exceptionalism?
- What are the aesthetic, sociocultural, and political implications of music and imprisonment?
Objectives
The project objectives are:
- to deliver new knowledge on the experience of prison music from a peripheral perspective;
- to strengthen understanding on how the cultural conditions of music in prison affect those imprisoned, as well as prison officers, music facilitators and wider society;
- to unpack how music activities foster unique pathways to citizenship for prisoners who’s fundamental status means certain rights have been denied.
Participants
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Lucy Cathcart Frödén
University of Oslo
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Noah Mathias Winther Krogsholm
University of Oslo
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Publications
Anthology
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy, Kate Herrity, & Áine Mangaoang (eds.). 2026. Sound & Detention: Towards critical listening, sonic citizenship, and social justice. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Peer-review articles & chapters
Kenny, Ailbhe, Mangaoang, Áine, and Alexis Kallio. “Community Music in Detention Contexts.” The New Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Oxford University Press. [in progress, anticipated publication 2027]
Healy, Hannah, Cathcart Frödén, Lucy, Mangaoang, Áine & Katharina Swirak. “Can co-creation behind bars be abolitionist?” In Arts & Abolition: Another World is Possible. Bain, B., de Quadros, A., Amrein, E. & W. X. Coleman (eds.) Brill. [forthcoming, fall 2026]
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy and Áine Mangaoang (2026). “You Are A Shining Diamond Inside": Sonic Citizenship at sites of exclusion. Seismograf. Special Issue on Sonic Citizenship. Breinbjerg, M., Koldkjær Højlund, M., Kirkegaard, J. R., & S.R. Lundgård (eds.)
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy and Áine Mangaoang with Belizio (Emil Cabral Hortman) (2026), “Sounding Citizenship in the Carceral State: On voice, hip hop and power in prison.” In The Routledge Companion to Voice and Identity, Naomi André, Freya Jarman, and Amy Skjerseth (eds.), Routledge.
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy and Áine Mangaoang (2026). “Crackle and Flicker: exploring the fireplace as a multisensory metaphor for prison-based choirs.” In The Routledge International Handbook of Sensory Criminology. Routledge.
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy (2025) “I have more than just one name: Learning from multilingual creative workshops.” In A Handbook of Integration with Refugees: International Learning from Scotland. Aldegheri, E., Fisher, D., & Phipps, A. (eds.) https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.29308405
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy (2025) “Fragments for Multilingual Listening.” Struer Tracks – Biennial for Sound and Listening. https://almanac.struertracks.dk/projects/fragments-for-multilingual-listening/
Mangaoang, Áine & Lucy Cathcart Frödén (2024) "Música, conexión y relaciones sociales en el contexto penitenciaro" (Music, connection & social relationships in the prison context) Scherzo: Música en cautividad II dossier, 66-68.
Mangaoang, Áine (2024) “Walls.” Allegra Lab. Special Issue on Sensory Media Anthropology. Grønlykke Mollerup, Nina, Kytö, Meri, & Niamh Ní Bhroin (eds.)
Cathcart Fróden, Lucy (2023) ’Be Like Water’: Participatory Arts, Prefigurative Social Movements and Democratic Renewal. In Adrian Bua & Sonia Bussu (eds.) Reclaiming Participatory Governance, Routledge.
Cathcart Fróden, Lucy (2023) Conviviality and Contamination, PARSE Journal, Issue 16 (2023) [Open Access]
Mangaoang, Áine (2023). (Be)Longing: Irish Musicking and Place-Making in Oslo, Norway. In Pardue, Derek; Kenny, Ailbhe & Young, Katie (eds.), Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night. Intellect [Open Access]
Mangaoang, Áine (2021). “A reward rather than a right”: Facilitators’ perspectives on the place of music in Norwegian prison exceptionalism. Musicae Scientiae, Vol. 25(3) 274–289. [Open Access]
Research Films
- Real Life: Venjas Harem 2025 (film, 5’03”) NORWAY: Featuring original songs and short interview excerpts from a band whose members met while incarcerated in Oslo’s Women’s Prison, some of whom have been playing together for over 20 years, this short film of their music and their testimonies demonstrate how listening together helps band members to feel deeply connected to each other, which is especially meaningful post-release from prison.
- Því að lifa lífinu? (Why live life?) 2025 (film, 4’51”) ICELAND: Against a soundtrack of a song recorded in an Icelandic prison by incarcerated artist-composer Gústi Hraundal, in collaboration with jazz musicians in Oslo, audiovisual elements detail the embodied, physical, and sonic practices of an Icelandic sweat lodge ritual used by people with experience of incarceration to process trauma and find healing.
Pros and Cons: InHouse Harmony Choir, 2024 (film, 4’13”) IRELAND: Since 2019, incarcerated men in Mountjoy Prison have sung with women from a nearby office in Dublin in a unique “inside-outside” choir. The choir is called InHouse Harmony. In Pros and Cons, they reflect on their shared sonic community over the sound of their voice singing the much-loved Irish folk song, “The Auld Triangle”.
Media
'Hva skjedde med rehabilitering...' Siri Narverud Moen, Ballade.no, 2026.
'Prisons of Note: bringing harmony to rehabilitation.' Feature on Prisons of Note project with interview from Áine Mangaoang, Ireland.ie (The Government of Ireland website), 2025.
‘Tónlist getur hjálpað föngum að komast aftur inn í samfélagið að lokinni afplánun’ (‘Music can help prisoners re-enter society after serving their sentence’), Ingibjörg Sara Guðmundsdóttir feature on the Prisons of Note project with interviews from Lucy Cathcart Frödén & Noah Krogsholm, RÚV (The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service), 2025.
‘Tónlist í fangelsum’ (‘Music in prison’) Prisons of Note feature with interviews from Lucy Cathcart Frödén & Noah Krogsholm on Heimskviður (Podcast) Episode 223, 2025.
‘Tónlist í fangelsum’ (‘Music in prison’) television interview with Áine Mangaoang for RÚV Fréttir, 2025.
‘By a Lonely Prison Wall: How a Prison Choir is Unlocking Prisoner Potential,’ Aoife Barry interview with Áine Mangaoang, The Irish Times, May 30, 2024.
‘Music Conference in Mountjoy Prison shines a light on the value of musical collaboration to support education and social change.’ Feature on the Pros & Cons Symposium at Mountjoy Prison co-organized by the Prisons of Note researchers. SOLAS, May 22, 2024.
‘Musikk kan endre livet til mennesker i fengsel’ (‘Music can change the lives of people in prison’), Silje Pileberg interview with Lucy Cathcart Frödén & Prisons of Note, Det humanistiske fakultet forskningssaker, Universitet i Oslo, 2024.
Cathcart Frödén, Lucy and Áine Mangaoang Songs from the Inside IMV Radio / Radio Nova, 2023.
Musikk knyt innsette i norske fengsel til verda utanfor. Silje Pileberg interview with Áine Mangaoang, Universitetet i Oslo Det humanistiske fakultet: Aktuelle forskningssaker, 2022.
Music connects inmates in Norwegian prisons to the outside world. Silje Pileberg interview with Áine Mangaoang, University of Oslo Faculty of Humanities: Research news, 2022.
Funding
Project number: 315759
Project documents
Project Newsletter #1 (Spring 2023) (pdf)
PRISONS OF NOTE: Working Reference List (GoogleDoc)
Events
The project team are organising or participating in the following conferences & events:
Public Exhibition: Sonic Citizenship (18.09.2026-11.10.2026), Pop Up Studio, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo.
- In September 2026, music researchers from the University of Oslo will take over the Pop-up Studio, filling the space with the exhibition SONIC CITIZENSHIP: an immersive, multisensory audiovisual exhibition featuring short films, music, & sound from the Prisons of Note project, in collaboration with the Democracy of Silence project. All are welcome to visit the exhibition and tune into some songs, sounds, and stories that mediate community, critical consciousness, and hope.
- The exhibition is supported by the University of Oslo, the Research Council of Norway, and Ultima: Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. Entrance to the exhibition is free.
- The exhibition is curated by Áine Mangaoang, Lucy Cathcart Frödén, Peter Edwards and the research projects Prisons of Note and Democracy of Silence led by Taina Bucher.
- Drop-in all-ages workshop: 12:00-14:00, Saturday 19 September, 2026.
- Sonic Citizenship Symposium (18.09.2026), Mandela Room, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo.
- A programme marking the launch of the exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center, together with the launch of the book Music of Absence: An Aesthetics of Loss in the New Millennium. Across the different contributions to this programme, listening functions as a counterweight to dominant forms of thinking and social organisation that can produce injustice, exclusion or marginalisation – revealing hidden or missing structures, absent voices, and alternative ways of living together.
The day moves between exhibition, artistic practice and academic research. As an introduction, Áine Mangaoang and Peter Edwards present two independent research projects: Prisons of Note draws on four years of research into music, sound and detention, including collaborations with artists and others with lived experience of imprisonment; Democracy of Silence asks what happens when participation is understood not only through speaking, but also through silence, hesitation, withdrawal and non-verbal forms of knowledge. The two projects are brought together in an exhibition including documentary films, photographs, texts and participatory installations.
BookLaunch: Sound and Detention (19th January 2026), Scene HumSam University of Oslo.
- Bringing together over 40 contributors from five continents, Sound and Detention: Towards Critical Listening, Sonic Citizenship and Social Justice tunes in to some of the manifold effects associated with the presence and absence of sound and music in prisons and places of detention: from isolation, harm and control, to connection, healing and resistance. The launch event features input from experts in criminology, musicology, sound studies and community development, as well as an opportunity to tune in to some of the audio material that accompanies this innovative volume.
- PROS and CONS: A Symposium on Music and Incarceration (eventbrite.ie), the first academic symposium on music held inside an Irish prison (22nd May 2024), in collaboration with the Mountjoy InHarmony Voices Choir, an inside/outside choir whose members include men serving sentences and employees of SOLAS, the education and training agency in Ireland. It features:
- Workshop on sonic & sensory methods // LISTENING TO // SOUNDING WITH // (ainemangaoang.com) in collaboration with Malmö University and the EASA Sensory Media Anthropology Network (22 September 2023).
- IASPM XXI Biannual Conference (iaspm-us.wildapricot.org) IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) International, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (26-30 June)
- EPEA (European Prison Education Association) conference, Tønsberg, Norway (13 -17 June 2023)
- Care: NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) 2023 Conference (necs.org), University of Oslo, Norway (13-17 June, 2023)
- Prisons of Note: Conversations on Music & Detention. Forskningsforum (Public Research Seminar) 24.04.2023, 12:30-14:00 (CET), Stort møterom, University of Oslo HumSam Library.
Published Nov. 22, 2024 1:01 PM
- Last modified Sep. 9, 2026 4:25 PM
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