Key Takeaways
- Three NEA members have been honored as 2025 Country Music Association Foundation Music Teachers of Excellence.
- Thirty teachers from around the country were named Music Teachers of Excellence.
- Hong Le, Erin Althen and Megan Perdue are dedicated to teaching music to the students in their communities.
For using their musical talents to nurture and educate the next generation of singers, instrumentalists, composers and music aficionados, three NEA members—Hong Le, Erin Althen, and Megan Perdue—have been named by the Country Music Association (CMA) to the 2025 class of CMA Foundation Music Teachers of Excellence.
The class consists of 30 music teachers representing 11 states, who will all receive stipends for their classrooms, individualized professional development opportunities and access to CMA’s broader network, such as the association’s festival and award show.
Drumming Through Our Differences
“My goal is to use music to bring people together, whether across cultural divides, generations, or other barriers. Music communicates and empowers in a way that unites people,” NEA member and 2025 Music Teacher of Excellence Hong Le explained.
Le is a general music specialist in the Hudson City School District in Hudson, OH.
As a child of Vietnamese refugees, Le navigated her living with her Vietnamese culture in America by joining her junior high school band, where she felt accepted and like she belonged. All these years later, Le is now a National Board Certified music specialist who has spent the last 24 years combining her passion for music and love for teaching to provide students with an artistic outlet to express themselves.
Le earned two Bachelors of Music degrees, one in Music Education and another in Bassoon Performance. She also has a Master of Music Education and a Master of Educational Administration.
As a faculty member of the World Music Drumming since 2005, Le serves as the K-5 Unified Arts Facilitator and Senior Lead Mentor for the Hudson City Schools District. She has used the World Drumming curriculum to work with at-risk students for faculty team building sessions.
“I teach to help students discover the best of themselves and to find the beauty, not the divide, found in our differences,” said Le.
Living, Breathing and Teaching Music
NEA member Erin Althen is a music teacher, performer, conductor, clinician and author, as well as 2025 Music Teacher of Excellence.
“I consider myself a true lifelong-learner and feel very lucky that my district is very supportive of my desire to attend, lead, and participate in learning conferences, clinics, and classes throughout the year, every year,” she said.
Althen is the Westhill High School Director of Bands and Chair of the Fine Arts Department in Syracuse, NY, where she has developed a cultural norm of safety and belonging.
“From the first queries of ‘What do you want to do when you grow up’ I knew I would teach, but wasn’t sure what,” she explained.
“I worked through different possibilities in my childhood: perhaps I would teach dance, art, horseback riding, physical education, history, English….maybe I would coach.”
What set her decision to be a music teacher in stone was an opportunity to run a 35-minute lesson for a group of freshmen given to her by her high school band director and who she calls her “greatest influence and role model,” Mr. Tom Johnston. Her choice was later affirmed by Mr. Johnston when he told her she should be a band director.
Althen later received both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Music Education with Performance Honors in Flute.
Outside of teaching, Althen is the founder and co-conductor of the Syracuse Youth Wind Symphony and the co-founder of the Central New York Music Teacher Mentoring Program.
When she’s not teaching or playing music, she writes about it. Althen has co-authored several sight-reading instructional books.
Modeling Vulnerability
Megan Perdue, the Secondary Music Representative for the Eugene Education Association is also being honored as a Music Teacher of Excellence. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Master of Music in Music Education.
As a music instructor in Eugene, OR, she wears many hats. Perdue is the Director of Choral Studies at Sheldon High School, the K-12 Music Curriculum Specialist for the Eugene School District 4J and the vocal director and producer of the Sheldon music theater program.
“When we hold solo auditions, almost all of the students in the class audition,” she said. “By creating a culture where students bravely try new things, they focus on supporting one another and working through their struggles with curiosity instead of fear.”
After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Master of Music in Music Education, Perdue used her gift of music to teach students up and down the West Coast, from Oregon to California to Washington State.
In her classroom, she always strives to model vulnerability, which she believes has increased student engagement.
“Singing is an inherently vulnerable activity, while playing an instrument is external, like holding a clarinet or striking a piano key, the voice is internal,” she explained. “It feels personal because it is a part of every person.”
