Amro Music Recognized with Innovation Award at The NAMM Show

Elizabeth Dale

Amro Music of Memphis, Tennessee, began its experience at The 2022 NAMM Show by celebrating its centennial anniversary at NAMM’s Milestone Awards. Beyond the excitement of celebrating a century of providing music-making opportunities to its community, the NAMM Member also added to its list of achievements as it was honored with the Innovation Award at The Top 100 Dealer Awards.

The Innovation Award recognizes a retailer’s commitment to “re-imagine the retail experience and focus on the consumer.” Operations that take home this coveted award “look beyond price and service to create an immersive shopping experience.” Examples include creating comfortable hangouts and welcoming spots where customers can enjoy live music, filling a musical void in the community, and strengthening the marketplace by bringing consumers together with music. Past winners of the Innovation Award include Royalton Music Center (2020) and Zeswitz Music (2019).

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amro Music has recognized the struggle that faced music educators and set out to develop tools and resources to aid educators and re-invigorate their music programs as they returned to their classroom and in-person instruction.

Fast-forward to the spring of 2021, when the retailer brought together a group of expert music educators and manufacturing partners from across the industry to collaborate on the “Post-Pandemic Planning Guide.” Organizations like Hal Leonard, the Music Achievement Council, and Yamaha joined Amro Music to share ideas, content, and strategies to produce a series of eight email newsletters that aided in reopening music programs and safely bringing music back to schools.

2022 Top 100 Innovation Award - Amro Music

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The eight carefully curated emails included timely information to help teachers navigate returning to the classroom. Topics included strategies to discuss risk mitigation and research with administrators and decision-makers; recruiting new students in a digital or hybrid setting; requesting Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) for programs; summer recruiting ideas; and working with your school counselor to overcome scheduling challenges, among others.

Educators, schools, and districts received the emails in an “open-source” HTML format, which allowed them to copy the content, add their logos and contact information and distribute it throughout their communities. The campaign resulted in meaningful and well-timed content reaching more than 500,000 music educators nationwide.

Of the recognition at The 2022 NAMM Show, Amro Music’s Vice President, Nick Averwater, said, “Being recognized with the Innovation Award at the NAMM Top 100 banquet is a tremendous honor for Amro Music. The Post-Pandemic Planning Guide was an incredible collaboration of industry partners, including Amro Music, Yamaha, Hal Leonard, the Music Achievement Council, and a group of amazing educators. I am grateful to each of them. This award is a true reflection of a great team that came together to provide meaningful content to educators in a challenging time.”


For more information on Amro Music and The Top 100 Dealer Awards, please visit https://www.amromusic.com/ and https://topdealer.namm.org/.