Educators Add Music To Mix At Biennial Meet

The National Assn. for Music Education (MENC)'s 59th National Biennial In-Service Conference will feature, for the first time, the Music and Sound Expo.

The Music and Sound Expo, produced by NAMM, the International Music Products Assn., will include some 250 exhibitors, from musical instrument and software manufacturers to educators, publishers, wholesalers and retailers.

The MENC confab is slated for April 14-18 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

NAMM holds biannual trade shows. The winter NAMM show, held Jan. 15-18 in Anaheim, Calif., drew 74,236 registrants and 1,340 exhibitors (Billboard, Jan. 31).

The Music and Sound Expo will be open to the public. Conference attendees will have exclusive access to the expo April 16 from noon to 3 p.m. The public can join them April 17 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., as well as 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 18.

Michael McDonald will headline the April 16 Music and Sound Expo Concert, produced by Yamaha and benefiting music-education charities. Edwin McCain will also perform.

INCREASING EDUCATION

"We've always known and partnered with music educators," NAMM president/CEO Joe Lamond says, "[but] always on very surface levels of agreeing to promote music and music making.

"NAMM has been talking to the music products industry for many years," Lamond continues. "We hope to educate the general public on music, music making and audio. There's a real mix of things going on that will energize and allow us to have a voice directly to the real consumer, the end user."

NAMM's winter and summer sessions—the latter will be held July 23-25 at the Nashville Convention Center—feature several hundred manufacturer exhibits. Many exhibitors will tailor their presence to the MENC conference.

For Fender Musical Instrument Corp., a smaller, education-specific exhibit will appear in place of the full array of instruments and amplifiers typically displayed at a NAMM show, spokesman Morgan Ringwald says.

"Our education department will be there," Ringwald explains. "[Director of education] Bob Morris, a former educator, will work with school boards and teachers to get them started with a program on how to teach guitar. If you're an accredited music teacher, it's very easy to pick up. At that point, we pair the school board and administrators with retailers in their area."

Fender's Squire line features inexpensive versions of the company's revered Stratocaster and Telecaster electric guitars and its Precision and Jazz electric basses, among others.

Lamond hints that the Music and Sound Expo may indicate an expanded program of NAMM shows open to the public.

"There are boat shows, auto shows, hunting and fishing shows," Lamond says. "There's a template out there that the music products industry has not been thinking about. It really influences demand for products and tends to energize a market, and that's why those other categories of consumer spending do so well. They take advantage of that; I think we should."