The Mediterranean Sea is sometimes called the largest cemetery in Europe.  According to the United Nations, 28,000 migrants have died or gone missing in the dangerous crossing of the sea since 2013.  It holds the history of countless migrants desperately using smugglers and un-sea-worthy boats to flee war, persecution, and hunger in search of a better life.  For those who survive and those who perish, their dilapidated boats wash up on the shores of Lampedusa and other southern Italian islands. Now prisoners in Italy are transforming these boats into works of art and symbols of hope.

The story begins in 2012 when the Milan-Opera prison, the largest in Italy, began a rehabilitation project in which prisoners could carve, chisel, and assemble wooden objects in a carpentry laboratory.  All through the pandemic, prisoners created crucifixes, rosaries, and nativity scenes for distribution to churches and schools using wood from discarded boats in Lampedusa.  As part of this initiative, a violin was built with some of this wood, using a technique dating back to the 1500s.  The first one was called Violino del Mare (Violin of the Sea).  It produced a sound that amazed musicians and performers with its clarity.

In these prisons, an instrument takes 400 hours to create, from disassembling the boats to the finished product.  While a violin made in the famed workshops of Cremona, an hour’s drive from Milan, is made of fir and maple, the migrant boats are made from a softer African fir painted in the sun-drenched hues of blue, orange, green, and red.  The veneer of paint influences the timbre of the musical instrument.

La Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti is the Foundation that sponsors “Metamorphosis,” the rehabilitation project that established the  Violin Making and Carpentry Laboratories in four Italian prisons.  With the success of the Violin of the Sea, the Foundation asked the Minister of the Interior for 60 more boats from Lampedusa.  During 2022, a second violin, a viola, and a cello were made in the various prisons; during 2023 another 6 violins were created; and in 2024, 8 more stringed instruments will be created. 

Thus was born the Orchestra of the Sea.  It made its debut at the famed Teatro alla Scala in Milan on February 13, 2024.  (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8bumoRt5Ac.) As they played works by Bach and Vivaldi, the musicians were acutely aware that their instruments also gave voice to the tales of hope and desperation of migrants. In the royal box at the concert hall were the mayor of Milan, along with 2 prisoner-luthiers on leave from the Opera Prison.  As one of the artisans said, “This morning I woke up in an ugly, dark place.  Now I am here.  I feel like Cinderella.”  The concert was live-broadcast / simulcast at the prison as well.

For the prisoners in the Metamorphosis program, creating the instruments provides both physical and psychological therapy.  One prisoner revealed that the four to five hours of work a day in the laboratory gave him a sense of tranquility, a time to reflect on the mistakes he’s made, as well as an opportunity to develop skills for a future.  “I’m gaining self-esteem,” he revealed.  The prisoners also reflect on the lives of the migrants: they sometimes find remnants of their lives–like a diaper bag and a little sneaker in the boats—and wonder whether these daring and desperate travelers survived. 

This is a story of many transformation:  from discarded wood to beautiful musical instruments worthy of the La Scala stage; from prisoners without hope to artisans and luthiers with a future; from voiceless migrants to soaring music that draws the spotlight on their lives.  The Orchestra of the Sea will continue performing throughout Italy and southern Europe, finally going to the northern European capitals where policy is created.