{"id":47473,"date":"2021-04-10T00:22:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T06:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-middle-school-again-wins-national-music-award\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:38:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:38:45","slug":"montezuma-cortez-middle-school-again-wins-national-music-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-middle-school-again-wins-national-music-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez Middle School again wins national music award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Band
Band teacher Andrew Campo, Assistant Band Director Alex Mohr and choir teacher Marla Sitton hold a banner commemorating last year\u2019s national award. The school was awarded again this year for its emphasis on its music program amid the coronavirus pandemic.<\/span>Courtesy of Montezuma-Cortez Middle School<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma-Cortez Middle School this week was among only 80 schools in the country to receive a SupportMusic Merit Award for its commitment to music education.<\/p>\n

The award, presented by the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation, was awarded to schools this year that made a point of emphasizing the importance of music education despite the many challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

According to a news release, M-CMS was the only school in Colorado to earn the distinction.<\/p>\n

To qualify, M-CMS answered a series of detailed questions about funding, graduation requirements, music class participation, instruction time, facilities, support for the music program and community music-making programs. Responses were verified with school officials and reviewed by The Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has certainly been a crazy year,\u201d band teacher Andrew Campo told The Journal.<\/em> \u201cIt\u2019s been a very unusual year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Band students have been unable to do full practices together or perform for the public this school year.<\/p>\n

Practices have instead been done in smaller groups spread throughout the day.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, Campo believes that the school and the district were always committed to maintaining the strength of the music program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really about what kind of efforts you make as a district team to keep your programs alive during the pandemic,\u201d Campo said.<\/p>\n

Resources provided by the district included personal protective equipment, cleaning materials and tents that allowed students to practice together outside.<\/p>\n

Students and staff also followed rigid guidelines when practicing indoors.<\/p>\n

Instead of primarily focusing on performance and competition this year, teachers emphasized enjoying music for music\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been \u2018let\u2019s have some fun playing music and appreciate the opportunities we do have,\u2019\u201d Campo said.<\/p>\n

Campo hopes the band will be able to have a parade this fall.<\/p>\n

The M-CMS music program was awarded nationally last year<\/a> for its inclusiveness and excellence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such an incredible honor for our music program to be recognized yet again this year, and it carries such unique weight this year compared to last,\u201d M-CMS Principal Drew Pearson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

anicotera@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Program lauded for adaption, persistence amid pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,147,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87190,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47473\/revisions\/87190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47473"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}