Meet our 2025 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year nominees — next up: Jeannie Hunter from Ottawa, ON.

The MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award, presented by Anthem Entertainment, is happily celebrating its 20th anniversary recognizing and honouring exceptional Canadian music teachers each year.

Tune in to the 2025 JUNO Awards on Sunday, March 30 where the winner will be announced, and on our website & social media platforms @MusiCounts.

What is the music program like at your school?

I am very fortunate to be at a school where the music program has come out of COVID stronger than we went in. We did a lot of advocacy work during the pandemic. I have a 95-odd piece grade 9/10 concert band, jazz bands, choirs, small ensembles, we have combos, we have percussional ensemble — so it's a big vibrant program with lots going on [from] morning, noon, and night. There is rehearsal, jam session, you name it. It's never quiet in there.

And so how did MusiCounts made an impact on those programs?

So, I received MusiCounts grants at two separate schools. The first was when I was at Brookfield High School, and I believe that was in 2009. We used that to fund, first of all, the creation of an entire program. We didn't have a guitar program at that school, so we used the funding to buy a class set of guitars and that program is still in the running — how many years has it been? 16 years later. Then we also use it to purchase a lot of percussion instruments from around the world. At the time Brookfield had something that I founded called the World Voices Choir and the idea was that the kids were very diverse, and traditional choral music just wasn't a good fit for us. So we started singing music that the kids' parents taught us, and [what] we could find that had been arranged or notated from places all around the globe, and we used all the percussion equipment to support that. For example, we bought a lot of auxiliary percussion equipment: samba squad drums, hand drums, things that we could carry. At the time, the Stepen Lewis Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, for example, was making a petition on Parliament Hill. So we processed them using all the equipment we bought that we could walk with from city hall to Parliament Hill to present their petition. It really diversified what we were able to do. Then we bought a few other key instruments that the school was missing — so it had a big impact on that program.

And then at Hillcrest High School, which was the next school that I went to, there was literally no percussion at all. I didn't even know that such a thing as a suitcase stylophone existed. It was an octave and a half. We really couldn't address modern concert band or contemporary music coming out of diverse composers and we didn't have the equipment to do so. We really helped diversify that program by contributing, again, more percussion and then some key instruments that we were missing. We bought things you would never be able to afford particularly in older schools. There's no replacement, there's no repair budget, there's no infrastructure for anything, so we bought a Flugelhorn, a soprano sax, things that really allowed us to expand and explore what kind of music was possible.

What does it mean to you to be nominated for the 2025 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award?

So, that's a great question and it's so hard to quantify. It's almost impossible to even conceive of being asked that question. I look around me and I see so many music teachers that are just the best human beings that I know that are so hardworking and, the first people to show up at school, the last people to leave, the people who are always there for kids: that's the music teacher. I look at the other nominees and I'm so honored to have been selected. I'm humbled, to be honest with you, to have been selected for this and it makes me want to work even harder than I already am to just keep growing, and doing and being better. So you dig down, you double down and be humble, and just keep putting the kids and music education first.

Do you have a music teacher or mentor that inspired you?

I think this is an awesome question and I can't answer it with a single name, because I am continuously inspired by the people around me. Again, I look at my fellow nominees for this award and I am incredibly inspired. I'm still really good friends with both my associate teachers and I graduated from teachers college in 1993! I can still call them and ask questions. I have this incredible support network of women music teachers in my board that I'm so fortunate to have, and we can call each other and help each other out with anything. But when I get down to it, the biggest inspiration for me is the kids that I teach and honouring their journey in music education and just wanting to join them. So I'm inspired every day by the kids that I work with. And I'm incredibly inspired by my own son. He was a musician studying jazz, and I think about his experiences, and my experiences, and the experience of the kids, and I just work really hard to make sure that what I'm able to offer in my space is what every kid needs.

Amazing. Is your son hoping to have a career in music or is that his career?

My son is in third-year jazz performance at McGill University and he's a performance major and I'm just blown away by this kid every single day. His drive and his passion reminds me that that's what's important: the kids that are in front of you every day. What they need and how you can provide it, and how you can grow as human beings together by making music together.

What are you looking forward to doing at the 2025 JUNO Awards in Vancouver?

Okay, so I know that everything is not the answer you're looking for, but I am beyond excited! I was already a bit of a JUNO nerd, and a bit of a fan girl. I love Canadian music and my husband and I go to concerts all the time, we are a live music family. We go to the jazz festival, the National Arts Center here in Ottawa, so I am just so excited for the vibe and seeing all these amazing humans in one place and all the events and getting to hear live music. I love Songwriter’s Circle. I'm super excited for that and when the JUNO Awards were here in Ottawa, we bought tickets way up in the nosebleed section and I just loved every minute of it. I love seeing the performances and just kind of looking across and seeing all these people that are Canadian music heroes. It's just going to be an amazing experience and I can't imagine how it's going to change me as a music teacher again, and make me want to just keep digging in and doing more and honoring Canadian music and musicians. I am unbelievably excited about the whole thing.

*Interview condensed for readability.