In just over a week, the winner of the 2025 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award will be revealed at the 2025 JUNO Awards in Vancouver.

We caught up with Stephen Richardson, our 2024 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year recipient, repping the brand in his 2024 JUNOS hoodie, to see how things have been since his exciting win.

Tell us what you've been up to in the year since you won the 2024 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award.

Since I won the Award in Halifax, I’ve been up to quite a bit of stuff that I didn't anticipate that comes along with it, which is pretty amazing. The main one is getting the kids back into the classroom. We sent out all our instruments with the original funding from MusiCounts to Edmonton and they all came back fixed so that was really super helpful. The kids are really excited because before that, they'd be working hard but they'd be fighting against the instrument.

I've been working on a lot of the pre-production for my own solo stuff, Agony of the Leaves, so that I can probably have about six songs demo’d. I convinced the PhysEd teacher to record one of his country songs and I think he's kind of hooked. So, Mr. Taylor's going to continue. I think he needs another four to have a full album. David Dowe, who was with me at the JUNOS, he recorded two albums with him beforehand. So, we're always trying to recruit any teachers we see that play, any staff members at any of the schools. We offer them to try out the studio and usually they're surprised, and then they get really into it. They're mostly surprised that they sound as good as we're hearing them pre-demo, and we know how big it can sound with production and so they're all always pretty surprised it's even them.

I did some articles for Canadian Musician magazine. One on my classroom, and one on gigging in the north and all the different stuff that comes with playing in a rock band at -55℃. Darren Hamilton, who won a few years back, has a music classroom book that's coming out on popular music education, so I did a chapter on my songwriting class on the grade 6/7 at the end. And so that's in edits right now. He’s sourcing teachers across Canada. You have a curriculum book textbook that you can use in the classroom on different aspects of teaching in Canada, and the modern-teaching classroom.

I was flown to Toronto to hang out with Anthem and film the MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award video so that was amazing, being at the record label. Then I asked them if I could send them some footage of Yellowknife and they liked that, then everyone flew up here for the weekend and they really enjoyed that. They're thinking of coming up again for maybe the Snow Castle Music Festival and a few other things.

I've been doing vocal lessons with Josh Ramsay's sister, Sara Ramsay. I did an interview with her on her vocal podcast. Before that I was doing vocal lessons with Brian Byrne of I Mother Earth, and so I've been in contact with him trying to get some more lessons when I get a chance, and he's offering co-writes so maybe that'll be something I do on the new album as well.

Probably the most craziest, weirdest, most interesting thing that happened with the JUNOS was in Sydney, Nova Scotia, there's a huge fiddle on the waterfront where cruise ships come in with a lot of gift shops. My youngest son ran into a gift shop and I heard someone go, "My god!" and I thought he had knocked over something. I ran and caught him, and when I looked up it was an album (like CDs and records)/beard oil shop. The guy had said “my god” because my beard had gotten so big, so that led to an endorsement with Cape Breton Beard Oil Company. I might do some photos when I go back. Somehow I'm a beard model now, which is just hilarious and interesting. That's probably the only thing I never thought would ever happen in my life, but good product!

Being recognized a lot was probably the most surreal part of it. I was in Edmonton at a hockey game and someone said, “Are you that guy?” “Yeah, I guess I am”. It's happened probably 17 times now here and back home in Nova Scotia. It's been pretty interesting to talk to people that come up, and they're happy that you're teaching music in classrooms and they watch the JUNOS and that part was pretty unique.

It sounds like you're so busy! And the beard model story, that's actually really cool. You go into a store, you walk out a model.

Yeah, they have a pretty cool website and so I bought some of it, but I never used beard oil in my life. Then he said, “I'll send you some stuff”. I think they do tattoo oil and different things, but it's a pretty cool company. Then when I go home, I'll go in and talk to him, maybe take some pictures and stuff. But I've been endorsed before for my rock band for guitars, and I got earplugs at endorsements, but I never thought I'd be endorsed for beard oil or follicle products.

What was it like for you to attend the 2024 JUNO Awards in Halifax and what was the experience like for you?

Halifax meant a lot because I'm from Nova Scotia. Depending on where you're from in Nova Scotia, a lot of people will go to Halifax for their university experience or trade school. So I went to Saint Mary's University for probably a decade. I go home every summer and I'm usually in Halifax for a bit. The hotel that we were staying at, with the teachers, was on the same street as one of my apartments. I go home to Nova Scotia and stay in Halifax, but I don't really get a chance to be without my children. It just felt kind of free and more like before I was married and everything.

So, I got to walk around and within a few hours I was doing all my old shortcuts. David Dowe was with me and was like, "Where are we going?" I'm like, "My feet are just taking me all through these alleys because I lived downtown the whole time I was here." My sister and my nephew came to the JUNO Awards. A good friend of mine, Jason Chetwynd and his wife, they came. And there's other people I knew from university that I just met up the first few nights, just walking around. I went and got a donair the first night, and I could hear a band playing through the wall of the venue and I said, “I think that's my friend that plays this strip”, and I texted him and it was him, so we went over and saw him. I got to see my other friend I took jazz with and who's also a band teacher, Rob Reid, and he was down at the next one and so we all met up. People I hadn't seen, some of them I see every summer, and some I hadn't seen in 30 years — all that part of being home in Halifax was really great.

Who did you get to meet during the 2024 JUNO Week and what was it like?

I can't remember if it was the first or second night, but I got to play the JUNO Fest with my friend Kevin. I have a few friends that I went to university or high school with that gig in Nova Scotia non-stop. So, Kevin and Leona Burkey were gigging at the Split Crow, and had Dave and I play a few tunes. Then my friend Roger was playing, Jimmy Swift I think was playing. I got to meet Bill Roach, who I’ve known since elementary school, he's a big CBC personality back home. Probably was ‘95, he was going to Mexico and I was moving to Vancouver, I think was the last time I saw him. We did a couple interviews on the radio, but we hadn't been in-person.

Then at the different cocktail party events I met TALK, and he did a little video with me trying to convince my sister-in-law to practice. She introduced me to him, and she was practicing the song. I taught her one of his songs, then “A Little Bit Happy” and then she stopped practicing, so I made him make a video telling her to practice and that just blew her mind.

Then we did that song with the St. Joseph's choir. There's a little rock band my son formed here called The Five Puppeteers, they were the four puppeteers and someone joined so they're the five, and that got placed in the CBC Music Class Challenge and so we used the TALK video at the end of the video.

Jim Cuddy again, which is fantastic, he always has an afterparty for the artists. So I played that time in Edmonton, and then this time they wouldn't let me play unless we did one of our songs and sang. So we did our version of “Whiskey in the Jar” since we were back home in Nova Scotia. Then that led to all the stuff with Anthem, they saw us play and then said we're going to fly you to Toronto. So that worked out really well and was really gracious of Jim Cuddy to put that on every year.

You're meeting so many people each night, so I think the first night there's three different events and MusiCounts is so organized in taking us here to here. We met the mayor and then you leave that event, and you go to another one with Damhnait Doyle, I met her, and then you go to another event. So usually by the third day for the new teachers, you're pretty wiped. It's a lot going on.

So why do you think it's important to recognize music educators in the way that we do with the MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award?

I think it's an important visibility for people to look into the modern music classroom. School is changing so fast, even when I came back this year I know the kids' attention spans will be even less than they were before because the AI stuff is really changing the game. So to be able to see inside the classroom and see what music teachers are doing to kind of keep up with that and keep students engaged and have a positive impact, it's pretty important because I think a lot of people would look back at their music experience and it can be positive, but there's more going on.

I'm very fortunate but for some schools, the lack of funding that [MusiCounts] are stepping in to provide, it's pretty eye-opening I think for a lot of just the regular public to so it's important for them to know that's going on. There's teachers that really have a lot of care and concern to push forward music and view music as their life's work.

How did it feel going back to your school at École St. Joseph after you won and what kind of celebrations happened?

I work closely with Deanna Ehalt-Zawyrucha, the learning through the arts teacher, so we do the concerts together. She usually does the paintings that goes on behind the concerts, like all the decorations and stuff. So when I came in, the secretary had her phone filming then I opened the hallway to the band room. Her class had designed a red carpet and painted a JUNO as tall as me. That was on the wall of the door to the music room. Then at recess, they had a big sheet cake and it had me with my stage guitar, so all the staff got to have a piece of that. They let me chop off my head and I was able to eat that part of the cake.

Then they announced it in the gym and stuff, so I was appreciative of all that. I was kind of jetlagged, so I didn't expect that when I walked in school, I just expected to go back to teaching. So the morning was kind of off for a couple of periods, and then all that kind of celebration stuff went on so that was really nice.

I love the dramatics with the red carpet. And so what was done at your school with the grant money that you won as a part of your prize?

So when I came back from the JUNOS, I had to fly to Edmonton for my oldest son's hockey tournament. Nick Godsoe called me and I had won the MusiCounts Slaight Family Foundation Innovation Fund. The JUNO money and the Slaight, we combined them to buy loop stations, portable recording stations and everything that would be needed for my songwriting class.

Last year when we were doing the songwriting class, a couple of kids made an amazing song and it was like a graduation song. So, we've used it for high school and for when kids leave grade 7 here, but we took them to Dave Dowe in his studio and we had them record. Dave mixed and mastered it, and we had an extra couple hours to do a photo shoot with them and I put it on Apple Music and everything.

But it'd be really useful for them, and logistically a lot easier than bussing them to the studio, if they all learned how to record themselves on their own recording station. So that's what I used the money for. We got a loop station for each group of 5, a portable recording station. I bought some LAVA music acoustic guitars, which is like an acoustic guitar but on the side it has all the backing tracks. So kids can come up with an idea on the guitar, but then the guitar records it, and they can play it, it has drums coming out of the guitar at the same time. We got a good mic to record their vocals and headphones for mixing. Anytime they can be creative and be in control of their musical experience is when you really draw them in, and keep them hopefully for a lifetime in music.

What did you do with your prize money?

What I did with my prize money is probably a different answer than most teachers. I used to work for CIBC in Halifax for a year when I was trying to get into the jazz program, so I missed a couple opportunities back then that still haunt me. My intention was to use the entire money to do this and then on the day before we flew back to Yellowknife, our house-sitter called and said our second water heater had blown up.

So I had to spend about 6 grand on a water heater. Then my intention was to take the entire 10 grand and put it into Bitcoin because my friend had asked me to go into Bitcoin when it came out, and had I listened, I don't think he did it either, if we put in a thousand, but we probably have almost 7 million each right now. So I started really researching crypto, and then I took a grand of that and staked it, and I pretty much tripled that and so I got right into that world of crypto, and just trying to amplify my profits.

Do you have any advice for this year's winner?

I would tell this year's MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award winner to just be present. There's so much that goes on in that five days or whatever that you can kind of just miss it and be overwhelmed. Every day, are we really paying attention to what's happening here? We would people-watch, and try to have as many conversations with people at the different after parties and stuff. Just be present in a place of extreme gratitude, because my family was there. It will go by super quick. In the year afterwards, utilize your time to continue to make a positive impact in music and really start to think about leaving a legacy because a lot of opportunities open up. Anthem coming up here, just having a record label, even listening to my own music with Agony of the Leaves, I was like, “This is unbelievable”.

I would just tell the teachers to think about any connections you can make. If they've had any ideas of “If this could happen, would I be able to do this?”, you're able to. Even if you're not the winner, even being nominated opens up all kinds of doors. For me, I started getting calls for gigs and getting more money for gigs just by being nominated. Even though it's almost two separate worlds, my rock band and teaching, now you have the validation that you're on the right track. Use any ideas like that you want in the classroom to make your program and your class just even more impactful for students. Take the study of music with you, because you're on the right path.

*Interview condensed for readability.