CMA sets the Music Teachers of Excellence ceremony lineup for October 7

The Country Music Association has announced the lineup for its tenth annual Music Teachers of Excellence ceremony, held on October 7 at The Pinnacle in Nashville. The evening honours 30 music teachers for their work with students and communities across the country.

Six acts play. Sierra Hull, Marcus King, Carrie Manolakos, David Phelps, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Tucker Wetmore perform, and Kix Brooks and Keith Urban speak. That is a bill spread across bluegrass, blues rock, New Orleans jazz and mainstream country, which suits an event about music education rather than one genre of it.

The tenth edition adds a new honour. The CMA Foundation will present Joe Galante, the industry executive and Country Music Hall of Fame member, with the first CMA Foundation Music Education Impact Award, recognising his work advancing music education and expanding what students can reach.

Galante's involvement goes back to the foundation's beginning. He helped shape it, became a founding member of the board when it was established in 2011, and has served on that board for 15 years, including five terms as chairman.

The measurable part of that work is the partnership with Metro Nashville Public Schools, which has put 12.5 million dollars into music education across the district and produced the Music Teachers of Excellence program itself. Honouring teachers with a concert is symbolic; the district investment behind it is not.

The ceremony is filed under country. We covered the CMA naming the fifth class of its Women's Leadership Academy earlier in the year, and two of the performers have appeared in our pages recently: Marcus King on a Sho-Bud steel guitar bill at the Ryman and Tucker Wetmore explaining his summer mixtape.