Keep The Music Playing

$6.1 MILLION DONATED TO DATE

Did you know that proceeds from the past six CMA Music Festival events have helped fund school music programs? Since 2006, The CMA Foundation has donated more than $6.1 million to benefit music education programs for Nashville's 78,000 public school students from through the "Keep the Music Playing" campaign.

FACTS

• “Keep the Music Playing” was created in 2006, by CMA’s Artist Relations Committee led by Kix Brooks, to give back to the local community by supporting music in our schools on behalf of the artists who perform free during CMA Music Festival.
• To date, CMA has donated more than $6.1 million to the cause.
• Contributions from the 2011 CMA Music Festival totaled $1.4 million with $1.2 million given to the Nashville Foundation for Public Education, and $200,000 (final contribution toward $1 million endowment gift) to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Words & Music program, which assists language arts and music teachers with classroom instruction in the basics of songwriting.
• Funds have been used to build music labs and purchase more than 4,000 instruments in 80 Metro schools.
• Studies show that students who participate in the arts do better in school and are more likely to graduate. Metro’s performing arts students have a 96 percent graduation rate compared to the 76 percent for the general population.
• Country artists who have visited schools and helped deliver instruments include Suzy Bogguss, Kix Brooks, Jay DeMarcus, Emerson Drive, Sara Evans, Montgomery Gentry, Kellie Pickler and Jimmy Wayne.

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