Page 68 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 3 Spring 2013

Gallagher ’87
Musical Public Servant
A dozen years into a career in corpor-
ate America, Kiff Gallagher ’87 had a bit
of an epiphany.
“I had been on that same track for a
while and I felt that if I didn’t pursue
music, I was going to be unhappy,” he
says. “It was that simple.”
What Gallagher didn’t yet know was how
he would link his music to a larger social
mission. Within a few years of launching
his own music career, including a pair of
solo albums, Gallagher began to think again:
“I wondered,” he says. “‘What am I doing?’”
It was 2007 and the 2008 presidential
campaign was in full swing. Gallagher
noticed that the candidates were talking
a lot about the importance of national serv-
ice based on skills-based volunteerism.
SPOTLIGHT
A powerful tsunami had devastated South
Asia in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina had
ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
“Everybody was talking about Ameri-
cans serving and nobody was talking
about musicians,” Gallagher says. “The
great irony is that, whenever there is
crisis, people turn to musicians to help
open their hearts and process tragedy. I
felt that there was something missing.”
Gallagher began to analyze the data and
found that music is frequently used to
engage and heal people and communities.
He thought of the Peace Corps and Teach
for America and realized what he wanted
to do – start a service organization based
on those models that used musicians as
public servants in high-need settings.
“It all kind of hit me,” he says. “I thought
we needed a musical Peace Corps. I felt
that’s why I had been doing music, and I
knew the world really needed this.”
In 2007, Gallagher launched Music Nat-
ional Service (MNS), funding it in its infancy
with his own savings. Just before Christ-
mas 2008, he learned that MNS would be
the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the
Hewlett Foundation. Since 2009, Music
National Service has received an additional
$1.1 million from the Hewlett Foundation
to fund technology infrastructure and
training opportunities and to launch its
pilot MusicianCorps program in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Today, the organiza-
tion’s MusicianCorps arm trains musicians
to use their skills for public service. Music-
ianCorps musicians have reached more
than 15,000 low-income youth, hospital-
ized children, and veterans. Some of the
artists are volunteers while some are
employed, with full health benefits, on
annual contracts.
“There are thousands of young people
pursuing music with no economic incen-
tive,” Gallagher says. “We are training
them to use those skills for engagement
and as a type of intervention in educa-
tional and health settings and in trauma-
tized communities.”
MusicianCorps operates on the mission
of music as a unifying source, whether
for some children who are struggling to
find meaning in the school setting or
others who are fighting for their health.
“Even for those thriving in school,
music provides a release,” he says. “It has
been clinically shown that singing has the
equivalent impact of an hour of light exer-
cise and meditation in one’s overall health.”
On the reverse side, Gallagher is ob-
serving that this form of skills-based
service is also a gift to the musicians
involved. By feeling more committed to
their communities, he says, Musician-
Corps volunteers have reported that they
are not only better musicians, but that
the rewards of both the service and the
response to it have increased their com-
mitment to use those skills for the greater
good. Gallagher is a prime example of
this phenomenon.
“I sometimes think about how I have
chosen a very risky path,” he says. “But I
am also grateful for having had the insight
to pursue this and make these connections
in my life that are relevant and meaning-
ful to my passions and have an impact on
the world.”
COURTESY MUSIC NATIONAL SERVICE
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