Nine of Ten GRAMMY Music Educator Finalists
for 2020 Are NAfME Members

NAfME member Mickey Smith Jr. has been named the honoree of the 2020 GRAMMY Music Educator Award™. Congratulations!

The Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Museum® announced ten finalists for the 2020 GRAMMY Music Educator Award™, and nine of the ten are members of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME)*. More than 3,300 initial nominations were submitted from across the country—from public to private school educators, from general music teachers to band directors, choral conductors, string teachers, and college professors. NAfME congratulates each and every one of these talented, dedicated music educators. 

Here are this year’s finalists. NAfME members are highlighted in bold.

Elizabeth Bennett	Buffalo Grove High School	Buffalo Grove	IL
Stephen Cox	Eastland High School	Eastland	TX
Victor de los Santos	Santa Ana High School	Santa Ana	CA
Geoffrey Gould	Swift River Elementary School	Belchertown	MA
Elizabeth Hering	Churchill High School	Livonia	MI
Jason Majerczak	Drexel Hill Middle School	Drexel Hill	PA
Chris Maunu	Arvada West High School	Arvada	CO
Lynne Ruda	Lancaster High School	Lancaster	NY
Mickey Smith	Maplewood Middle School	Sulphur	La.
Kokoe Tanaka-Suwan	Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, The Shirley Rodriguez-Remeneski School	Bronx	NY

 

The 2020 GRAMMY Music Educator, selected out of the ten finalists, will be flown out to Los Angeles to attend the 62^nd Annual GRAMMY Awards, and attend various GRAMMY Week events at the end of January, and take home a $10,000 prize. The nine additional finalists will each receive a $1,000 honorarium; the schools of all ten finalists will receive matching grants. The remaining 15 semifinalists will receive a $500 honorarium with matching school grants.

Read a list of the quarterfinalists featuring NAfME members.

The honorariums and grants provided to the finalists and schools are made possible through the support of the GRAMMY Museum’s Education Champion Ford Motor Company Fund. In addition, the American Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, NAMM Foundation, and National Education Association support this program through outreach to their constituencies.

All six of the previous GRAMMY Music Educator honorees, Kent Knappenberger, Jared Cassedy, Phillip Riggs, Keith Hancock, Melissa Salguero, and Jeffery Redding are NAfME members.

Learn more about the Music Educator Award^TM process.

 

Nominations for the 2021 Music Educator Award are now open for teachers, students, and the rest of the public to nominate a music educator who inspires them. The deadline to nominate is March 15. The deadline to apply is March 31.

Best of luck to the finalists! 

* This number reflects those whose memberships were current at the time of this announcement and is subject to change.