Keith Urban has been named the first ambassador for the new Music Education Matters program sponsored by the Country Music Association.
Keith Urban is stepping up to the plate as the first ambassador for Music Education Matters.
The Music Education Matters (MEM) program is CMA’s new initiative to keep music in public schools, it is a subject that Urban is passionate about.
“Music is sometimes the only expression for kids who don’t fit in, who are frustrated, troubled, very inward and don’t know how to express themselves,” says Urban.
Urban has so far donated 60 “Keith Urban” signature guitars complete with amplifiers, strings and picks to Music Education Matters programs in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, and San Francisco.
After it was announced Urban was donating 60 guitars to the CMA Foundation for distribution in local schools, he performed his new single “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”
Urban says there’s nothing like “seeing the genesis of the relationship between an instrument and a child or young adult.”
“It is so important to get instruments into kids’ hands and the education to go along with them. Otherwise they have something in their hands they don’t know what to do with,” he says.
“But put an instrument in their hands they connect with and the education to go with it, and they come to life with something to speak for them. Their world changes. I can’t imagine my life if I had not had a guitar in my hands. I would not have had this life I have now.”
Urban and wife Nicole Kidman are raising their own children in a musical environment.
“We have a piano, a guitar on a stand and a little drum kit for them to play around with if that’s something they gravitate to,” says Urban.
“Mostly I’m introducing them to rhythm. If there’s a beat on the radio, I get them to pound it out on the table or the car seat or their legs, whatever is handy! I just want to help them make that connection.”
Along with Darius Rucker, Eric Church and Brad Paisley, Urban will close out the 44th Annual Music Fest tonight (June 14th) night at LP Field, then head to Sheridan, Wyoming for the Big Horn Country Music Festival.
See Keith Urban on tour below!
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