PeaceLabs Music - Music Saves Lives

Friday, Aug 26 2011 Dance Party Fundraiser for MNS

PeaceLabs — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:05:13 +0000

Friday August 26 - 9pm til the music stops

come kick it and dance with us

DJ Kap10 at Club Waziema
543 Divisadero Street, San Francisco

Come support and learn about the benefits of music in schools, children’s and veterans hospitals, hospice centers and other community settings

$5 - $20 sliding scale admission

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Donate to The Center for Music National Service!

Donate online at http://www.musicnationalservice.org/donate

Or make a donation by mailing a personal check made payable to:

The Center for Music National Service
3254 19th Street
Second Floor
San Francisco, CA 94110

Thank you for your support!

Help MusicianCorps Win $250k - Vote!

PeaceLabs — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:27:59 +0000

TIME Mag: Can Music Save Cuba?

Kiff Gallagher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:13:24 +0000

“…change is coming to Cuba, and if the island is going to preserve its identity, it will need its music more than ever.”

The Sound of Change: Can Music Save Cuba?

By NATHAN THORNBURGH / HAVANA

From the story, I can’t tell whether music will save the nation…but music’s clearly kept it alive through a failed economic and political system. Here are more bites from the article:

- Now the band has new members, neither well-off nor famous: just another group of ridiculously skilled Cubans trying to hit a seam in a tightening music market.

- What I remember from 1999 was the ubiquity of music: everywhere, every day, in clubs at night and on the Malecón in the mornings–music. At González Coro hospital in Vedado, where my wife was working for the summer, surgeons broke out a boom box in between patients and invited nurses and med students alike for an impromptu salsa session. Dance, sing, smile, repeat: the cultural cure for whatever ailed the revolution.

- for indigenous, righteous, complex and complete music, there is nothing like Cuba’s timba. It has been a vital outlet for taking on taboos, like Los Van Van’s early critique of rampant prostitution in a 1996 song about papayas: go ahead, they sang, touch it; it’s a national product. During the economic crisis following the Soviet collapse, music was the one thing that held the island together, a common passion for both revolutionaries and reactionaries.

- marrying a Cuban musician is like marrying a soldier or a doctor, she said. They’re always on call; they’re always overseas.

- most Cubans earn from $15 to $25 a month and survive off the ration books that offer them sugar, rice, beans and (only for the elderly) cigars.

- He plays for tourists in Old Havana but earns just a few dollars a night. The strings for his instrument are made out of recycled telephone wire; he cuts his guitar picks from shampoo bottles. He is still restless, eager for an upgrade in life.

- More and more Cubans are looking for common ground.

Music Therapy Featured in the Washington Post

Kiff Gallagher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:50:21 +0000

From the Washington Post December 23, 2008: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903041.html

“Hitting the Right Notes To Aid the Ill”

Loeb, who has practiced at Howard County General Hospital, stresses that the “live human touch” is essential and can’t be matched by a CD or tape. “It’s important for us to be able to watch the patient and react musically. We look at how they’re breathing, at their facial muscles to see how relaxed they are, to know if we have to change the key, the rhythm, the melody.”

She believes the music has an immediate impact: “You can see on the cardiac monitor the oxygen level creep its way up to 100 percent,” she says, “because the music is relaxing them so that when they’re breathing they’re oxygenating their tissues better.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903041.html

Economist Special Cover Story: Music and Evolution

Kiff Gallagher — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:47:50 +0000

Let there be no doubt that a global music education, engagement and service zeitgeist is well underway. It gives me the chills actually.

Anyway, if best selling books by Daniel Levitan, Oliver Sacks and others hadn’t already signaled that scientists (neuro, social, evolutionary, etc) are fully engaged in the quest to articulate why music is powerful and important as well, The Economist piece will put that to rest.

It’s time to open, strengthen and expand a new channel of civic engagement through music – music volunteerism, music mentoring, music service. This is as much about social justice, youth and community development as it is about arts education. Please support the Music National Service Initiative. Thank you.

One tasty morsel from the Economist: The average American teenager spends 1½-2½ hours a day—an eighth of his waking life—listening to music.

And here’s what my Dad said in an when I flipped him the article:

Your link doesn’t seem to work but I had seen the piece in the Economist.

I must say that until now I had applied my masturbatory music metaphors to George Winston, (and occasionally Keith Jarret), but I see now that it casts a much broader net.

Notwithstanding the piece’s distracting allusion to such solitary activity, as between humanity’s two most basic drives; the competitive survival of our selves and the necessarily collaborative survival of our species, it is especially fitting for you and MNSI, that this article places music’s Darwinian role squarely within the latter. xo, dad

(is my dad cool or what?)

In Response to Inquiries After the NPR Piece

Kiff Gallagher — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:56:51 +0000

FYI

I sent this out late last night to the many extremely talented and experienced folks who ahve contacted us since the NPR story aired:

Dear Friends of MusicianCorps,

Thank you for contacting us. We’ve been blown away by the widespread, grassroots response to NPR’s recent story on “All Things Considered” (”MusicianCorps May Strike Right Tone for Obama:” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97963041).

SInce last week, we’ve heard from hundreds of talented and committed people from across the nation and all walks of life –– musicians and artists, Peace Corps and AmeriCorps volunteers, current and retired public school teachers, creative arts therapists, college students, and more –– who believe that MusicianCorps can change lives and the world for the better.

While we haven’t been able to respond to most of you individually yet, I wanted to let you know that I, or someone on our team, will be in touch soon. Thank you again for your inspiring stories and encouragement; we look forward to working together to make Music National Service a reality in America.

Kiff Gallagher

NPR’s All Things…Strikes a Chord

Kiff Gallagher — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:19:34 +0000

People from all over are pouring in to help and be a part of the music public service movement after hearing this piece on NPR, ATC called, “MusicianCorps May Strike Right Tone For Obama”

MNSi crew is working on getting back to everyone…and channeling the energy to make and Artist Corps happen!

We opened up a new channel to discuss the Artist Corps issue at ImaginArtists here:

http://musicnationalservice.org/imaginartists/

join the convo there.

peace, thanks, kiff

214 Grants, 1 Headline: Hewlett Fdn Announces MusicianCorps Investment

Kiff Gallagher — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:46:47 +0000

Thank you Hewlett for believing. The headline.

Talya’s Freddie Mac, Cheese & Boyfriend

Kiff Gallagher — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:41:21 +0000

Here’s MNSi volunteer Talya Liberman making her NYT, Freakonomics debut, with her man, Pavle (yes, that’s: “Talya and Pavle”). Check it out.

Totally cool you guys : )

MNSi talks arts ed w pros on artsjournal blog…

Kiff Gallagher — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:54:26 +0000

Live, Dec 1-5, it’s (drumroll…) “the value of arts in america!”: http://www.artsjournal.com/artsed

Featuring bloggers: Sam Hope, executive director, The National Office for Arts Accreditation (NOAA); Jack Lew, Global University Relations Manager for Art Talent at EA; Laura Zakaras, RAND; James Cuno, Director, Art Institute of Chicago; Richard Kessler, Executive Director, Center for Arts Education; Eric Booth, Actor; Midori, Violinist; Bau Graves, Executive director, Old Town School of Folk Music; Kiff Gallagher, Music National Service Initiative Founder; Bennett Reimer, Founder of the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience, author of A Philosophy of Music Education; Edward Pauly, the director of research and evaluation at the Wallace Foundation; Moy Eng, Program Director of the Performing Arts Program at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; John Rockwell, critic; Susan Sclafani, Managing Director, Chartwell Education Group;Jane Remer, Author, Educator, ResearcherMichael Hinojosa, General Superintendent, Dallas Independent School District Peter Sellars, director