For three decades, Ottawa high-school teacher Jeannie Hunter, Mus’91, Ed’93, has poured her heart and soul into nurturing a love of music in students of all backgrounds, cultures, and abilities.
Now the entire Canadian musical community knows it. After Michael Bublé called her name at the 2025 Juno Awards on March 30, Hunter was recognized on stage as winner of the MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award in front of many of her favourite Canadian composers and artists, and millions of fans watching across the country.
“Oh, my God,” said Hunter, smiling and her voice breaking with emotion, who thanked family, friends, all her students, and “everyone here for supporting the transformative power of music education.”
The magical moments and musical highs continued as she, her husband Chris and son Duncan – a third-year jazz performance major at university – belted out songs in harmony with legendary Canadian musicians at an after-party jam session hosted by Jim Cuddy, until 3:30 a.m. in Vancouver. “We got to be rock stars for the whole weekend,” says Hunter, who is currently head of special education and fine arts at Nepean High School.
When she returned to school the next day to teach her concert band, the sign out front which usually reads “Love Purple, Live Gold,” the school motto, said “Congrats on the Juno, Jeannie.”
As a young child, Hunter discovered the transformative power of music from a family heirloom.
“Whenever we visited my aunt in Port Hope, I would play my great-grandmother’s ancient piano. At age four, I taught myself to read music and play marching songs from these old, pre-Depression songbooks,” she recalls. “Music has always made sense to my brain.”
Hunter embraced her first encounters with music education in Grade 6, as one of 20 rural students bused to a Napanee school for music classes twice a week. “It was a launching pad for me,” says Hunter, who played in four or five bands a year at Napanee District Secondary School and began teaching students music in Grade 9.
Her passion for music is infectious and wide-ranging. For the past 30 years, Hunter has taught students aged five to 18 instrumental music, percussion, vocal music, band, choir, guitar, piano, orchestra, jazz and music for community living with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
A career-long advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion, she was the founding director of Brookfield High School’s World Voices Choir, which performed songs in over a dozen languages at schools and local benefit concerts. “The kids came from diverse backgrounds and cultures, so traditional choral music wasn’t a good fit for us. We started singing music that their parents taught us from places all around the globe,” she says.
Her students have shared the stage with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Susan Aglukark, and Serena Ryder, among others. In 2015, her students won the title of Canada’s greatest music class.
Her greatest class as a music student at Queen’s was taught by professor and composer John Burge. “It was incredibly inspiring how he would reverse-engineer music to help us understand how composition works and how music builds new neural pathways in your brain,” she recalls.
As a music educator, Hunter wants to inspire each of her students to express who they are through music and help build virtuoso human beings. “Making music with other people is the most enriching activity you can do for your brain. What I want for my students is to experience the kind of personal transformation that I have through music as a lifelong learner,” she says.
