Profiles

Mary L. Cohen teaches music educators and music education candidates at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She researches choral singing and well-being, songwriting, and collaborative communities, especially in prisons. In 2009 she launched Oakdale Community Choir, which rehearses and performs inside a prison, so that “outside singers” and “inside singers” can sing together. In this edited conversation, Cohen talks about a kind of community/prison choir through which churches can live out their Matthew 25:36 convictions.