My music students will play at CMA Fest. More kids need this opportunity

Yahoo

05-06-2025

I was 11 years old when I first played with a brass band on a big stage outside my home city of New Orleans. I can still remember the thrill of hearing our jazzy, rhythmic sound meet the roar of applause from an appreciative audience.
This weekend, 62 adolescents and early teens from the Tremé and surrounding neighborhoods of New Orleans will, like me, get their chance to perform away from home at the CMA Fest here in Nashville. It's a big deal.
These kids, part of the Marching Crusaders band program, come from low-income communities and under-resourced schools. Our afterschool program gives them the opportunity to learn the foundations of music, join a marching band, and perform live — while also getting academic tutoring, hot meals, and the chance to forge connections with their peers and the adults who care about them.
I started the program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which left our city bereft of so much — including music education. Our marching bands, a mainstay of our schools and a highlight of community events, were struggling. Fast forward two decades and the tradition is as popular as ever, particularly in high schools.
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Our program enrolls both elementary and middle school students and aims to get them ready for high school and college band opportunities, and — for those with the dream — life as professional musicians. But there are plenty of other reasons to provide wraparound services and music programs to students nationwide.
Too many families who need aftercare programs don't have access to them. And music education isn't reaching many kids from low-income backgrounds who would benefit from the training and the support services that organizations like ours provide.
We designed the Marching Crusaders program for students ages 9-14, because it's a formative time in a child's life when they can use help beyond what's available in the traditional school day. Risk taking increases, and mental health challenges are up. The Nation's Report Card shows middle schoolers are experiencing major academic declines and having difficulty making up lost ground related to the pandemic.
Learning music helps children develop discipline and has been linked to positive academic outcomes. Our program also offers daily tutoring and celebrates the Crusaders' academic progress on a weekly basis when our staff distributes prizes, provided by our generous partners, to top academic achievers. I really enjoy having the kids run over to pass me their report card and get a photo of us showcasing their accomplishments.
I always try to learn from others, and there are nonprofits in Music City worthy of attention and public support. I'm impressed with the work of W.O. Smith Music School, which provides low-income students with high-quality music instruction; the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Words & Music program, focused on songwriting; and Notes for Notes, which provides youth access to instruments and recording studios, to name just a few.
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And. of course, there's the CMA Foundation, which invests the proceeds from CMA Fest into music education programs, including the one I lead.
But there's no question kids need more, and perhaps we should all be looking for ways to provide it. The Marching Crusaders program serves around 200 kids, but we have a waitlist that garners hundreds of applications within days of opening, even if we only have 20 slots to fill. It hurts to have to turn kids away every year.
Especially at this moment of economic uncertainty and proposed education funding cuts, communities can strengthen music education. That can happen when nationally known artists, like those who call Nashville home, use their voice for good, or when communities find a way to expand and fund in-school and out-of-school music education.
Helping can also mean letting young artists take the stage during events like CMA Fest — even when those kids look and sound a little different from other performers.
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It's also so valuable to mentor kids and provide space for them to practice and play. I got my start learning drums in the childhood home of famed jazz musician Trombone Shorty. His mom, Lois Nelson Andrews, had a big heart and open door for budding musicians. Later, trumpeter Milton Batiste put me on the stage with the Olympia Brass Band. Today, I'm just paying it forward.
The Crusader Marching Band is the largest of several programs that fall under our nonprofit, The Roots of Music. The others include an in-school kindergarten and elementary program and a high school audio engineering and production program.
I believe children are the roots of music. We must nourish and take care of our roots. We'll all be better off for it.
Derrick Tabb is the founder and Executive Director of The Roots of Music nonprofit. An acclaimed musician, he plays the snare drum with the Grammy-award winning Rebirth Brass Band.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville CMA Fest is a great lesson, chance for children | Opinion