Press Release - Kathy Mattea, Ricky Skaggs, Suzy Boggus, Keith Lockhart, Edgar Meyer, and Bonnie Rideout Answer the Question "Why Music?" as Students Go Back to School

GRAMMY Award-winning singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea chose to participate in the series because she believes in the importance of music education: "Music is crucial. Music and the arts give us our soul and make us not just brains in a jar passing tests!"

Classical bassist Edgar Meyer said his father, a high school music teacher, helped to shape his career and influenced many other lives. "As I have performed over the past twenty years, I cannot tell you how many people have told me the impact my father had on them," he said.

Rideout, a three-time national Scottish Fiddle Champion, noted she is also a mom who believes music programs attract kids who are good role models. "I guarantee the kids in chorus and band are really great kids," she said.

Each PSA (www.menc.org/resources/view/why-music-radio-psa-series) is sixty seconds long and features an artist talking about the importance of music education for today's youth or a personal experience he or she had with music in school. Compact discs of the series will be distributed to more than 1000 adult contemporary stations, more than 1000 country stations, and 30 radio networks.

The PSAs are part of MENC's unceasing efforts to keep music programs strong in America's schools. "MENC's mission is to advance music education by encouraging the study and making of music by everyone," said John J. Mahlmann, MENC's executive director. "We believe that the celebrity messages significantly raise the public's awareness of the positive effect music education has on kids." The previous Why Music? edition, released in March 2006 to coincide with "Music In Our Schools Month," generated more than 206 million verified gross impressions over a month. "Music is intrinsically valuable on its own, of course," continued Mahlmann, "but it doesn't hurt, at a time when school budgets are so tight, to spread the word about the ways learning it can be beneficial to students. For instance, research seems to indicate that learning music can improve SAT scores, increase spatial I.Q., and decrease disciplinary problems."

MENC releases Why Music? twice a year in March to coincide with Music In Our Schools Month, and in September as children head "Back to School." The most recent "Back to School" PSAs, sent to 2000 radio stations and networks, generated more than 205 million verified gross impressions over two weeks in September 2005.

Why Music? has been the recipient of several prestigious communications awards, including the League of American Communications Professionals 2002 Magellan Awards Publicity Campaign Competition Bronze Award for Community Relations and The Communicator Awards 2002 Audio Competition Crystal Award of Excellence. In addition, MENC was awarded Honorable Mention in the PR News 2002 Platinum PR Awards for PSA Campaign, and the 2001 Bronze Anvil Award for Best Radio Public Service Announcement by the Public Relations Society of America. Most recently, the series was awarded the Mercury Awards 2003 Honors for the Campaign/Public Service Announcements category and the APEX 2003 Award of Excellence in the Public Relations and Information Video and Electronics Publications Category.

Wolf Trap, America's National Park for the Performing Arts (www.wolftrap.org), located in Vienna, VA, facilitated the participation of Keith Lockhart and Bonnie Rideout.

For more information on this series, or for PSA press kit, please contact Elizabeth Lasko at MENC, 703-860-4000, or by e-mail at elizabethl@menc.org. MENC's Web site is www.menc.org.

MENC: The National Association for Music Education, the world's largest arts education organization, is the only association that addresses all aspects of music education. More than 130,000 members represent all levels of teaching from preschool to graduate school. Since 1907, MENC has worked to ensure that every student has access to a well-balanced, comprehensive, and high-quality program of music instruction taught by qualified teachers. MENC's activities and resources have been largely responsible for the establishment of music education as a profession, for the promotion and guidance of music study as an integral part of the school curriculum, and for the development of the National Standards for Arts Education.

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