The Yellowknifer who won Music Teacher of the Year at Sunday’s Juno Awards says his students “are the main reason” he received the honour.
Stephen Richardson, of Yellowknife’s École St Joseph School, was named MusiCounts Teacher of the Year by singer Nelly Furtado during the live broadcast.
Asked what the award would do for him and his school, Richardson quipped: “I think it’ll makes it easier to get some extra guitars, if I need them, from my admin.”
“It’ll give me the inspiration to come up with more engaging ideas and maybe test some new creative ideas I’ve gotten in my head,” he added.
“I just want to thank my students at St Joe’s. They are the main reason I’m here … Thanks for inspiring me to continue teaching music and thanks for showing up for class and showing up between class, at recess and lunch. There’s a lot of them that come down and they seem to like it down there, so I’m very fortunate.”
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Richardson recalled being whisked through a “seamless” series of after-show events and interviews on Sunday night before ending up at what he described as the “Jim Cuddy jam suite.”
Cuddy, now 68, is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has led the band Blue Rodeo since 1984. His 13 wins and 39 nominations place him in the all-time Juno top 10.
“I guess all the really fancy musical people get to go,” Richardson said of Cuddy’s after-party.
“When we got there, I’d asked if I could go up on guitar … we got to play with a few people and we got to do a version of Whiskey in the Jar. We got home at 6:30am. It was pretty fantastic.”
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Richardson said his actual winning moment, as Furtado read out his name, was “a blur.”
“It was crazy. All the lights and the cameras come on you,” he said.
“I had Dave Dowe from my rock band with us. I think I tried to shake his hand, but I probably punched him by accident.”
