Gail Wrenn, who leads the Will Rogers Singers, said she did this to honor the years of dedication to music that Gallagher has put into Saranac Lake — from bringing music to the schools as a career, to helping fill Will Rogers itself with songs.

“It’s very touching,” Gallagher said.

It came as a surprise to her.

“I’m only one person. It’s all of you that make the difference,” she told the other residents and singers. “So when you come here, sing out. I’ll play, you sing.”

Tomi Gallagher plays piano while her daughters Beth and Gail sing at the Will Rogers Singers’ summer concert on Wednesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Gallagher accompanied the Will Rogers Singers on the baby grand piano inside the Great Room on Wednesday as they performed their summer concert featuring 12 songs all about summer.

Downstairs, a filing cabinet next to another piano in the singers’ rehearsal space holds what Wrenn estimates is around 500 songs — sheet music that’s been printed out and alphabetized.

“That’s all been inspired by the Gallaghers,” she said. “There was no music in the schools when she came.”

Gallagher taught music in Saranac Lake elementary schools for years and worked with the New York State Arts and Education program.

Wrenn has been building the library since she took over leading the singers for Gallaghers’ daughter Gail 10 years ago. The Will Rogers Singers — around 10 in total — put on these concerts around five times a year. Usually, they’re themed around seasons or holidays. There’s a whole box of Christmas songs in the library.

In a couple of weeks, the singers will go down to the library and pick out what they want to play. Wrenn said it’s a democratic system, with people adding their favorite songs to the list.

Wrenn said it is “wonderful” to have so many musical people living in the same building.

“Singing is so healing,” she said, describing it as a love and a passion.

“It’s not just something that you can do periodically. You have to stay at it,” Wrenn said.

The voice box muscles need a workout, just like any other muscle.

“You need to be singing in the shower,” she said. That’s where the best acoustics are. “Sing all day long.”

She also tells the singers, “you’re actors as well as singers.” She encourages them to incorporate physical and facial movement to express emotion and bring the audience in.

When Gallagher and her husband Bill moved to Saranac Lake to teach in the early 1950s, there wasn’t much music around and she had a bit of a “culture shock.” Saranac Lake was a tuberculosis cure town for years and Will Rogers had been a hospital for actors and artists suffering from the disease. But after an effective treatment was discovered in the late 1940s, she said the town didn’t have much music anymore.

She performed at restaurants, played concerts in people’s homes and taught music in the schools, becoming a driving force for music in town as part of a group of women who invited musicians to the area, housed and fed them when they came to perform.

Gallagher, 99, started playing piano when she was 4 years old. Her parents were vaudevillians.

“It’s very natural for me to ham up something,” Gallagher said.

On Wednesday, she was coaxed into an a capella rendition of “Broadway Baby,” between her piano accompaniments — a Stephen Sondheim song from the musical “Follies.” When Gallagher lived in the famous Barbizon hotel for women in New York City, her roommate was a showgirl in the “Follies.”

She still has her first baby grand piano — which she calls “Lady” — in her room at Will Rogers.

Gallagher will have her birthday in September, when she’ll turn 100.

“It’s only a number,” she said. “Don’t get excited.”

Her daughters said they are planning a birthday party for Gallagher soon.