Outstanding Music Educator of the Year Award

Nathan Heath is in his fourteenth year teaching at Sylvania Northview High School. This is his twelfth year as Director of Bands for the Wildcat Band. Prior to this, he served as the Associate Band Director of the Wildcat Band. Before teaching at Sylvania Northview, Mr. Heath was a music educator and performed professionally as a trumpet and piano player throughout the greater Cleveland area. For nine years he performed in numerous venues in Northeast Ohio. Performances included work with Jerry Bruno Productions (now known as the Cleveland Music Group), the Akron & Canton Symphony Orchestras, Cleveland Orchestra Educational Outreach Series, the annual Cleveland Puerto Rican festival, and many more. In addition, he has served on the music faculty of Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, Case Western Reserve University, and The University of Akron. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Bowling Green State University as well as a Master of Music Performance from the University of Akron. 

Under his direction, the Northview Band has performed several times at the Magnificent Mile Lights Parade in Chicago, Disney performances in Orlando Florida, Cedar Point/Cedar Fair, local Toledo Holiday parades, as well as Sylvania community parades and performances. In addition, his groups have earned Superior ratings in Ohio Music Education Association adjudicated events. Currently at Northview, Mr. Heath co-directs (with Associate Director of Bands, Carter Adams) the Wildcat Marching Band, Northview Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, Concert Band, directs two curricular Jazz Bands, and assists with Pep Band. He also co-teaches the sixth and seventh grade bands at McCord Junior High School. 

For over 40 years, Cecilia Johnson has dedicated her life to inspiring a lifelong love of music in her students and to strengthening communities through the arts. She has taught on the string faculties of Siena Heights University, Ohio Northern University, the University of Toledo, and for twenty years, at Adrian College. In 2003, Cecilia founded CYMBAL (Community Youth Motivated by Arts Learning), a fully volunteer-led-arts-based after school program she co-directed for eight years. Since 2020, she has been happily teaching strings for grades 2-12, at her daughter’s alma mater, Maumee Valley Country Day School (MVCDS). In addition to teaching at MVCDS, she remains dedicated to her home studio of violin students. 

MVCDS’s global community lends itself well to celebrating the universality of all artforms. For each MVCDS Chamber Ensemble concert, Cecilia chooses a theme that focuses on music’s reflection of the human experience. She enhances the performances with projected illustrations, videos, and student-involved presentations on relevant current events or history. 

A lifelong chamber musician, Cecilia knows firsthand the intrinsic value of chamber music to foster confidence, active listening, and collaboration. She assigns every Upper School musician to a chamber group and comes in before school multiple days a week to ensure every group receives individualized attention. Cecilia and her colleague, Jenica Fox, took the bold step of offering strings instruction to students as young as 2nd grade, resulting in seven after-school string groups where they nurture every budding musician who chooses to play. 

Cecilia helps her students thrive by building meaningful mentorship relationships. She encourages her students to consider the why of their musical presentation rather than merely the what of technique and interpretation. Cecilia intentionally avoids the vocabulary of competition in music, favoring camaraderie, shared purpose, and mutual support-using rotational seatings to help create a collaborative environment. Cecilia's greatest passion is sharing the joy of music, and in doing so, inspiring commitment to a kinder world. She is honored to be acknowledged as a finalist for the 2025 Outstanding Music Educator of the year award.