opportunities for the students, encouraging some to apply for American scholarships and fundraising for others to attend American music camps. He has also continued to work with a few young Tunisian musi cians from his Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan, giving lessons over Skype. “They have no composition courses at the music schools in Tunisia, so I’ve been teaching that,” he said, “and also setting up relationships for them with other composition teachers.” Souhayl Guesmi is one of the students who has benefited from Gallagher’s efforts. Growing up in the small town of Jendouba, outside of Tunis, he wasn’t able to find a piano teacher for years. “The local con servatory at that time couldn’t afford a professional piano teacher,” he said. “I was losing time, but I loved the piano and I wanted to progress, whatever it took.” Now Guesmi studies composition once a week over Skype with Simon Fink, Gallagher’s friend and a professor at Missouri Western State University. When Tunisia erupted in revolution last January, many of Gallagher’s students were greatly affected by the tumult. “For three weeks, I didn’t go to school,” said 16-year-old Senda Zayati, who has been working on an album of original songs with Gallagher and was one of the students he helped to send to American music camp. “I could barely sleep be cause we were so afraid of what was happening.” But by summer, the Jasmine Revolution had calmed down, a new interim government was installed, and many of the students returned to the camp, newly inspired. Among the many unantici pated cultural effects of the revolution was increased support for classical music institutions. This came about partially through the appointment of Interim Finance Minister Jalloul Ayed. He previously served as CEO of a prominent Moroccan bank and also com posed classical symphonies that were performed by the national orchestras of Tunisia and Morocco. In addition to steering the Tunisian economy back to recovery, Ayed worked with the Ministry of Culture to beef up funding for the Tunis conservatory and increase support for the national orchestra’s musi cians, which had been in decline during the previous regime. Gallagher met Ayed through a mutual acquain tance and was excited to play his compositions in Tunisia. In October 2011, Ayed invited Gallagher to perform for government officials, influential bankers and other elites. Suddenly Gallagher found himself in a new, political context. “At a house concert, you can talk to people one-on-one. “I don’t intend to be political,” he said. “But here They can tell you how they were affected by the performance, I was, playing for all of these people who were shap and you can answer their questions.” ing Tunisia’s new direction,” he said. “Mostly, I want — Kimball Gallagher to bolster Tunisian musicians. I want to show support and engagement with the artists and encourage them to assert themselves and take chances.” He’s been able to do that a lot lately. To celebrate the first anniversary of the Jasmine Revolution, Gallagher played several Some of his other international concert opportunities arose from of Ayed’s compositions at the Kennedy Center with rising star Tunisian working with the nonprofit organization Cultures in Harmony, which violinist Nidhal Jebali. The concert was webcast so that thousands of was started by William Harvey, his Juilliard classmate. Since 2005, Tunisians could view the performance. The audience appeared delight Cultures in Harmony has brought world-class musicians to 13 coun ed when, for one of his final pieces, Gallagher set a laptop on the grand tries to inspire and collaborate with young performers. Over the past piano to play his prelude “hot off the press” in honor of Tunisia. six years, Gallagher has been a deputy director for their workshop in Two days later, the globe-trotting pianist was on a jet headed for Tunisia. As a resident artist, he teaches workshops, offers private lessons Kabul, which was just a short stopover on his way to play a set of house and performs concerts at an annual summer music camp. The aim of concerts in India. the camp is to give music students of all socioeconomic backgrounds What’s the next stop? access to high-quality instruments and the opportunity to learn from If you have a piano, he will travel. top performers. “There’s so much talent in Tunisia,” Gallagher said. “But many of these students just don’t have the resources to advance their musical training.” To this end, Gallagher has tapped his own social network to create Follow Kimball Gallagher’s 88-concert tour: ›› ›www.pianokey.net He also composes. As a gift to each concert host, Gallagher cre ates a personalized piano prelude using a compositional system to spell out musical notes that match their names. Concert host Wendie Grossman loved her prelude. “I was so impressed with the wonderful tone that Kimball can evoke from the piano,” she said. She was dazzled by Gallagher’s “rare combination of engaging personality, savvy entre preneurship and artistry,” she said. She was also impressed at how he created opportunities to perform. “He once told me how he met someone on a train and started talk ing, and that person knew someone who had a foundation in a poor foreign country. Before long, Kimball was over there playing a concert for them to raise money. That’s how he makes his contacts and follows through,” she said. It’s true that Gallagher is always eager to connect to another patron, making serendipitous meetings like the one on the train part of his busi ness plan. (Disclosure: Gallagher performed at my wedding in 2007 and managed to arrange no fewer than three concerts from among our guests.) He’s also comfortable in a wide variety of venues, having played many bare-bones benefits along with performances at the private resi dences of actress Uma Thurman and author Thomas Moore. Veronica Bulgari invited Gallagher to perform at her family villa in Tuscany. “He’s got no bounds,” she said. “He’s bringing classical music to new and remote places and providing this intimate experience with the piano.”
Rice Magazine
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No. 12
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2012
35