North Carolina Symphony Accepting Nominations for Maxine Swalin Award for Outstanding Music Educator

Nominations are currently being accepted for a pair of esteemed educator awards presented annually by the North Carolina Symphony, the orchestra announced today. 

North Carolina students, parents, colleagues and community members can recommend their local music teacher for the 2012 Maxine Swalin Award for Outstanding Music Educator and Jackson Parkhurst Award for Special Achievement now through Tuesday, May 1.

Download the application to nominate a local music teacher who has made a difference under “Competitions & Awards” at www.ncsymphony.org/educationprograms. One application applies to both awards.

The Maxine Swalin Award for Outstanding Music Educator celebrates a North Carolina music teacher who makes a lasting difference in the lives of students of all abilities and backgrounds, serves the community in an exemplary manner as a role model in music education, instills a love for music in children and inspires students to reach appropriately high musical standards. 

The $1,000 recognition is made in honor of Maxine Swalin, wife of Dr. Benjamin Swalin, North Carolina Symphony music director from 1939 to 1972. Together they lobbied for the passage of North Carolina Senate Bill No. 248, “The Horn Tootin’ Bill,” providing state financial support for the Symphony’s education program, and in 1945 established the children’s concert division of the Symphony. Over 60 years later, the North Carolina Symphony’s education program remains one of the finest and most extensive in the country, bringing free live symphonic music to school children across the state.

In 2009, the Symphony created a new prize, the Jackson Parkhurst Award for Special Achievement, to be granted in the years in which a strong second candidate for the Swalin Award demands recognition. The prize, which includes a $500 recognition, is named after the Symphony’s former director of education, in honor of his longstanding service to the students of North Carolina. 

Jonathan Beal, music specialist at Collettsville School in Collettsville, N.C., and Eugene Cottrell of Northwood High School in Pittsboro, N.C., were last year’s winners of the Swalin and Parkhurst Awards, respectively. 

For complete information on the Symphony’s music education offerings for young students, adult learners and teachers, visit www.ncsymphony.org/educationprograms.

To post a comment, you must register and login.