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Consultant April Struthers has nominated the band Della Mae and Courtney Hartman for the Joyce and Paul Aicher Leadership Award for their work in leadership in arts organizations supporting social justice, for reaching across divides, for their cultural ambassadorship with the US State Department and America Music Abroad (especially for thier work with women and children). Della Mae expose their music framed in a pro-social community building manner. They are nominated for accomplishments through performance, teaching, developing voice and diversity, leadership in arts and music industry organizations, service work, use of community development, authentic dialogic practice, inclusion, cross cultural work, music preservation/ creation, collective approach and high level of collaboration.

They are virtuosic musicians, but more than that – how they work is noteworthy. And they exemplify community building, are role models especially for young girls wanting to play instruments, and they sing mostly original material about rural landscapes, family, neighbours. They dialogue continually.

Courtney Hartman, guitarist and banjo player (labelled by Acoustic Guitar as ‘staggeringly good’; nominated as Instrumentalist of the Year by Americana Music Association); has been pursuing a fellowship with RIF Brooklyn; working with refugee musicians to co-write and produce original music.

Courtney  has for the last year been studying consultancy processes with April – social mapping, project management, facilitative leadership, cross cultural meaning centred practice, neuroscience and complexity theory! She is especially interested in leadership and already exhibits strong leadership behaviours in music and beyond.

Winners of the award will be announced in August.