The Music National Service Initiative (MNSi) was created to advance music as a strategy for public benefit in education, health and community resilience. In 2008, MNSi was named a “Top-10 Policy Innovation” by the Aspen Institute to strengthen U.S. communities, and successfully worked with Congress to write and pass legislation to make musicians and artists eligible for AmeriCorps funds. See archived History and Timeline.
In 2009, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, MNSi became the Center for Music National Service (MNS) whose mission was to maintain music advocacy while designing and launching a “musical Peace Corps.”
Soon thereafter, we launched MusicianCorps – a pilot project that employed skilled musicians to serve full-time as teachers, mentors and care workers in public schools, children’s and veterans hospitals and other settings where music can reach, teach and heal. See national media and video about MusicianCorps here, here and here.
MusicianCorps made a positive, in many cases transformative, impact in thousands of people’s lives. Learn more about MusicianCorps impact here.
Today, the spirit lives on in an open initiative called #musicMLK which invites and urges musicians and music fans worldwide to participate in the Dr Martin Luther King National Day of Service, through music-making. Please check it out and get involved here!