North Yarmouth Academy (NYA) is excited to announce that Ian Ramsey, Visual and Performing Arts Chair, was chosen as a quarterfinalist for the Music Educator Award presented by The Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Foundation. Ramsey was one of 3,300 nominated educators submitted from all 50 states. A total of 290 music teachers from 264 cities across 41 states were announced as quarterfinalists today.
According to the Grammy Foundation, the Music Educator Award “was established to recognize current educators (kindergarten through college, public and private schools) who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools.” The award is open to current U.S. music teachers and can be nominated by anyone. Semifinalists will be announced in September. One recipient from ten finalists will be recognized for their remarkable impact on students’ lives. The recipient will be honored during GRAMMY Week 2017.
“I’m excited and honored to be recognized by the Grammy Foundation as a national quarterfinalist for the 2017 Music Educator Award. In a world where there are so many great and inspiring music teachers, I feel lucky, and humbled, to be part of this process,” said Ramsey. He is not sure who nominated him, but suspects it is a music colleague in western Maine.
Ramsey, a Bowdoin resident, graduated from the University of Southern Maine with a degree in Music Education with a concentration in jazz. He earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree in 2015 from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. He began working at NYA in 1999. In addition to chairing the arts department, he teaches a variety of music classes at NYA including music theory, wind ensemble, bluegrass ensemble, steel band, and jazz band, to name a few. Ramsey is known for tailoring his teaching to his students’ passions. He created an ensemble for four students who were interested in the Beatles, and continued with the group through the years working up to Abbey Road. In 2012, he led a student bluegrass ensemble to Chengdu, China to perform in the JinJiang-Jiaxiang International Students’ Arts Festival.
In 2013 he co-founded the Maine Acoustic Festival, the first statewide auditioned student roots music festival in America. In 2016 he created NYA’s “Distinction in Music: Performance, Entrepreneurship and Community” program, which helps students develop excellence in music performance while developing skills around service, community involvement and entrepreneurship. Most recently, he created the Kauffmann Program in Environmental Writing and Wilderness Exploration which seeks to educate students and the larger community about the importance of wilderness and nature. Last June, he led this class to Glacier Bay, Alaska.
North Yarmouth Academy is an independent, college preparatory, coeducational school serving toddlers to students in grade twelve. Since 1814, NYA has fostered integrity, character, and intellect in its students. For more information, please contact NYA at 207-847-5423 or visit our website at nya.org.
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