ROME (AP) — Instruments made from smugglers’ boats that brought migrants to Italy’s shores told their tale of desperation and redemption in a special performance at a prison in Milan on Saturday, in front of the inmates who made them.

World-renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti led the Cherubini Youth Orchestra, whose members played on violins, violas and cellos distinguishable by the faded blue, green and yellow paint of salvaged wood.

“These instruments are made from the tragic wood of these boats that were trying to bring people to safety and democracy,” Muti explained to an audience of inmates and guests at the Opera prison, the largest in Italy.

The makers who created these unique instruments are taking part in a project — dubbed Metamorphosis — that focuses on transforming what otherwise might be discarded into something of value to society: rotten wood into fine instruments, inmates into craftsmen, all under the principle of rehabilitation.