Nashville's CMA Fest doubles as a four-day music education fundraiser
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CMA Fest is taking over downtown Nashville this week, but the event is more than 2 square miles of country music nirvana. It's also a sprawling four-day fundraiser.
Why it matters: The CMA Foundation has pumped more than $30 million of festival earnings into music education around the nation. More than half of that total supported K-12 programs in Tennessee.
- Organizers expect to raise another $2.5 million for the cause during this year's festival.
Between the lines: Research shows that music education improves mental health, boosts academic performance and primes kids to become good community members.
- More than 300 artists perform across the festival's 10 stages. They all donate their time to boost contributions to the cause.
What they're saying: CMA Foundation executive director Tiffany Kerns tells Axios that is indicative of "how generous and philanthropic" the genre as a whole can be.
- "It's one of the things that I love saying to someone when they say, 'Oh, I don't love country music.'"
- "I'm like, 'Well, let me have you fall in love with the humans behind it that are doing so much good.'"
Zoom out: Foundation funding goes toward a wide array of programming, stretching far beyond the boundaries of country music.
- Funds support K-12 marching bands, rock bands, choirs, mariachi groups and after-school programs for studio engineering.
The intrigue: CMA Fest will give students in some of the foundation-backed programs a chance to perform for the tens of thousands of fans expected to attend the festival daily.
- Marching bands from Ravenwood High School and Stratford STEM Magnet High School are scheduled to perform, as is a student singer-songwriter from Nashville School of the Arts.
- The Roots of Music marching band from New Orleans, which has gotten foundation funding for nearly a decade, will perform Sunday at Nissan Stadium. They'll take the stage alongside country star Ashley McBryde and are expected to appear on the festival's television special later this month.
The bottom line: "I want people to see it more than just this headline that's like, 'CMA Fest is happening — traffic is going to be bad,'" Kerns says.
- "I want them to really understand that it's actually this beautiful event that is providing so much opportunity for people."
If you go: CMA Fest begins Thursday and runs through Sunday. Many of the performances are free to attend.
- Check the lineup for more information.