Carbon tax protest at Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border | SaltWire #newbrunswick #novascotia #rallySYDNEY, N.S. — Music was all around Stephen Richardson as he grew up in Grand River, about an hour’s drive outside Sydney.
“We always had music playing on a stereo or Walkman as the soundtrack to these activities,” said Richardson, who is the newly minted 2024 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award winner. Stephen Richardson with his Juno awarded March 24 in Halifax. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO FROM MUSICOUNTS - ContributedMusiCounts noted Richardson engages students from grades K-12 through music theory, concert band, choir, songwriting, music video creation, video game scoring, music production, rock band, piano, and African percussion. He also turns to Dene Elders in his community to arrange Indigenous drum making sessions with students.
Richardson is the first educator from the Northwest Territories to receive this award, which includes a Juno Award statuette, a $10,000 cash prize, a grant for École St. Joseph School through the MusiCounts School Music Funding Program and grants made to additional schools in his honour.Among those Richardson credits for inspiring him was longtime Antigonish band teacher Brent Bannerman, who trained him during his practicums.
“They were super accepting because here's like a guitar player that maybe knows one chord asking like a super popular Halifax band … I'm asking all kinds of questions and they never told me to go away,” Richardson recalled. His sister, Danielle Reye-Giacalone of Halifax, recalled how Richardson used to set up a stage where he was the singer/musician and she and their younger brother, Jonathan, were the crew members.