• Ken Picard
• The Non Prophets at Southern State Correctional Facility

A solitary fan hummed as 25 inmates filed into the un-air-conditioned visitation room at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield on a steamy July afternoon. Dressed in prison-issued navy blues, some with T-shirts reading "work crew" or "kitchen," the men sat in folding chairs under fluorescent lights while an Upper Valley vocal sextet, Non Prophets, prepped at the front of the room for a 90-minute performance.

While the concert venue may have been less than idyllic, the inmates watched with interest as the four men and two women warmed up, their ethereal voices harmonizing over a slow, heartbeat-like drum rhythm.

Michael P., 33, who's serving time for a probation violation, said he takes advantage of opportunities like this whenever the prison offers them. (The Vermont Department of Corrections asked that the inmates in attendance not be fully identified.)

"No one forces you to be here," Michael said of the concert. "Worst case, it gets you out of your unit. Best case, you hear something life-changing."

Julian Calv was hoping the latter for him. The 25-year-old Quechee musician, composer and leader of Non Prophets organized the concert as a memorial to the incarcerated men who've died at Southern State in recent years — at least 12 since January 2022. Though some of those deaths resulted from natural causes, others, including two suicides and an overdose, raised concerns from inmates' families and prisoners' rights groups. Hence the show's title and theme: "On Mortality, Life and Death."

The musical performance was the third in a four-part creative project funded by the New England Yearly Meeting, a regional Quaker group whose members routinely work on social justice causes, including prisoners' rights. Calv organized the show with Devon Kurtz, a former volunteer from Woodstock who led a biweekly Quaker ministry at Southern State and secured the grant.

Over the past 18 months, the Quakers also funded the publication of a book of artwork and writings, Sketches From Behind Prison Walls, and a May art show at Springfield's Gallery at the VAULT, both featuring works by Southern State inmate Rein Kolts. As the fourth leg of the project, Non Prophets plan to release a recording of the prison concert, with all proceeds to be donated to a local restorative justice program.

The concert was the first of its kind for Anthony Giordano, Southern State's volunteer services coordinator. Giordano, who's worked in corrections for 17 years, said he doesn't get many requests from the public to entertain inmates. But when Calv and Kurtz approached him, he was willing to "test the waters" and see how the concert was received.

Kurtz, who now works in Salt Lake City as a national prison policy reform advocate, said he was interested in a memorial concert because it would draw attention to the high number of deaths at Southern State. He described that toll as "unlike anything I've seen at prisons across the country."

Vermont DOC spokesperson Haley Sommer pushed back on that assertion. Because Southern State has geriatric, medical and psychiatric units, she said, it has a larger population of inmates with complex physical and mental health conditions than the state's other prisons.

"I wouldn't say that's something that's unique to Vermont," she added. "The folks in prison in general are aging."

Non Prophets consist of Sarah Penna and Hannah Philbrook on vocals; Brent Blair on vocals and percussion; the mononymous Nabeel on acoustic guitar, vocals and percussion; David Kenyon on vocals and synthesizer; and Calv on vocals and percussion. Calv's triangular drum, called a trimba, was invented by Louis T. Hardin (1916-99), an avant-garde musician and composer known professionally as Moondog.

• Ken Picard
• The Non Prophets performing for inmates

Moondog also wrote or inspired nearly all the songs Non Prophets played. Calv described them to the prisoners as "music for your mind."

The ensemble's name is a play on words in multiple senses, Calv explained. It refers to the group's lack of interest in turning a profit and to its secular nature. Non Prophets is also a subtle nod to the numerology — specifically, the number nine — that pervades Moondog's compositions.

Performed in vocal rounds and canons, Non Prophets' songs all have a cyclical, free-flowing quality, blending voices with acoustic and synthesized sounds and Native American-inspired drumbeats. The combination creates an effect that Nabeel called a "mental movement or meditation."

"Even if you don't remember the melody or the rhythm," he said, "you remember the essence of what the piece was."

After each suite of melodies, Calv paused to explain the songs' names and lyrics to the audience. Many referenced trees from around the world, which served as metaphors for life, death, isolation and loneliness — all themes of particular relevance to the incarcerated.

The music seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect on the men, who ranged in age from twenties to seventies, including one man who used a walker. More than a few closed their eyes, tapped their feet and nodded to the rhythms. One listener, with bifocals and a salt-and-pepper beard, swayed from side to side and silently raised a fist into the air. Only the occasional squawk of a correctional officer's walkie-talkie served as a reminder that this was a captive audience.

When the show ended, more than half the men gave the sextet a standing ovation. Several approached the musicians to compliment them and ask questions.

Among them was Ryan J., a 32-year-old from Newport who was nearing the end of a 14-year sentence. Though he'd never attended a concert before, he said, "I love music. It definitely helps me. At the end of the day, it builds on your mind, and it makes you go to a better place."

Byron H., sporting a tie-dyed bandanna and a Grateful Dead tattoo, agreed.

"I liked the theme of life and death [and] the way they relate life to trees," he said. "In the end, we all lay down, like the trees."

The concert seemed to invigorate the musicians, none of whom had ever performed in a correctional facility before.

As the only women in the room, Philbrook and Penna both said they were somewhat nervous going into the show but quickly relaxed once they began to sing. Philbrook, 23, said she found it "incredibly touching and meaningful" that several of the men came up to her afterward to say how much they enjoyed the music.

"I think we were all a little apprehensive about what to expect," Blair added. "But as soon as we got going, everyone in the audience was great."

For his part, Calv said he's always wanted to perform for incarcerated individuals and other marginalized groups, and he was glad for the opportunity to use his music to entertain and inspire an audience.

"This was the first," he added of the concert, "and I hope it's the first of many."