Berklee's Casey McQuillen Blends Music and Message in Anti-Bullying Campaign

It was the moment that most aspiring pop singers dream of: Casey McQuillen received three votes of approval from a panel of celebrity judges at an American Idol audition last year.

“That was angelic,” said Idol judge and pop star Jennifer Lopez of McQuillen’s performance, a cover of Demi Lovato’s song “Skyscraper.”

“If all you had was that voice,” added musician and fellow judge Harry Connick Jr., “that would certainly be enough, I think, to get you to Hollywood.”

But for McQuillen, 22, now an eighth-semester student at Berklee, the televised audition was also a moment of clarity. Prior to going on Idol, when she arrived at Berklee McQuillen sidelined a personal project, her You Matter tour—part musical performance, part anti-bullying campaign—which she had developed for local school districts. At the time, she worried that focusing on the tour might cause her to miss an opportunity to advance her commercial career. Instead, she focused on her performance, songwriting, and business skills by concentrating on her studies, playing local shows, joining a wedding band, and, ultimately, auditioning for Idol.

“I felt like that wasn’t ‘real’ music—that I should be playing clubs and I should be rock ’n’ roll like all my friends were doing,” says McQuillen, a native of Andover, Massachusetts, and voice principal who is double-majoring in songwriting and music business/management at Berklee. “I felt insecure that I was going to middle schools and singing for kids.”

In a way, McQuillen now acknowledges, she lost sight of the very message she delivers to teenagers struggling with their self-image: know what you want, learn how to get it, and reject the notion of failure.

After the American Idol audition—McQuillen made it to the top 48—she dove headfirst back into You Matter. “I finally felt like all of my skills were strong enough to begin actively pursuing my career as an artist, through the You Matter tour and my new album,” says McQuillen, who has already released two albums.

To date, she has performed in about 50 schools across Massachusetts and hopes to expand the program’s reach. She recently received the 2015 Berklee Urban Service Award for her development of and continued work on the project.

"Going on Idol proved to my insecure self, ‘OK, I can do this—but I don’t want to," says McQuillen. "What I wanted to do was this program because it really is where my passion for human rights and music all come together."

Looking Inward, Thinking Globally

Berklee, McQuillen says, has equipped her with the skills to develop as a pop musician and make what was once a side project part of a professional career. Songwriting classes, such as one she took with associate professor Scarlet Keys, helped McQuillen refine her process and make her music more accessible. 

“I used to always write the first thing that popped into my head because I thought that’s what creativity had to be—that it had to blurt out of your mouth or it wasn’t your muse,” McQuillen says. “But in this class I learned the most beautiful things that you can say sometimes take time.”

And some of the most valuable lessons McQuillen says she’s learned at Berklee aren’t on a syllabus.

“Berklee teaches you that just because the person sitting next to you is more talented in one way doesn’t mean that you’re not [talented in another],” she says.

A Project with Local, and Personal, Roots

Shortly after graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, McQuillen received a call from her former middle school music teacher. He asked her to perform for his students and talk about songwriting, which McQuillen had been doing since she was four years old.

Today, she spends about an hour with students at You Matter concerts, playing guitar and performing songs she wrote when she was their age. Between songs, she shares with students stories about her vulnerabilities and path to self-acceptance. 

“I talk about what it was like for me in middle school—being loud, head of the student council, straight As, and the dorky, drama club kid,” McQuillen explains. “And [I talk about] the insecurities that I still carry with me to this day.”

It’s an interactive—and often emotional—performance. McQuillen remains active on social media to continue the conversation with students after the show.

“I don’t think the program would work without music, and I don’t think the music would be as effective without words,” she says. “The songs create a safe space for the kids to interact with those feelings in their way and in their own time. If I was having a direct one-on-one conversation with a kid and asking them questions, that might be too much.”

Professor Tom Stein, who instructed McQuillen last year in his Professional Development Seminar, points to the You Matter tour as a poignant example of marrying music, business, and corporate responsibility.

“Her cause has a global appeal,” Stein says. “I don’t think she saw that until she was doing the work in my class and she came to see how to harness technology, for example, to take her message to a much, much wider audience. And I think she’ll do that.”