Greg Chomut on stage with students at Wake the Giant 2023 - (Supplied photo via Bay Media & PR)

A music teacher in Thunder Bay has been nominated for an award given out at the JUNO Awards.

It was announced on Tuesday that Greg Chomut is a nominee for MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award.

“It’s absolutely amazing, as a music teacher and a musician, you know I’ve dreamed of these things my whole life, and to be honest, I didn’t know that there was an award for music teacher of the year until I found out I was a nominee,” explained Chomut. “So it made it, you know, more of a surprise, obviously and to think that I’m gonna be sitting in the audience with other great Canadian musicians that I idolize and that, you know, I might have a chance to beat them, it’s gonna be a lot of fun I’m really excited.”

The award recognizes one Canadian music teacher for their impact on students, their community, and the educational field.

Five educators from across the country are being recognized for their contributions to music education.

Chomut has spent the past 17 years as a teacher at Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School.

He is heavily involved in the annual Wake the Giant Music Festival which welcomes Indigenous students from remote First Nations who are attending high school in Thunder Bay.

He highlighted his students and colleagues as motivators to go the extra mile.

“So many different reasons, of course, as you might know at DFC, a lot of our students, the majority of our students have traveled far from home from remote northern communities to attend high school here at DFC and because of that it’s such an enormous sacrifice that they make,” said Chomut. “I feel that they deserve the absolute best for that, and all the staff here spend a lot of time with the students outside of class times you end up building a really strong bond with the students.”

“Although I’m lucky enough to be the music teacher here that is like is the face of this for this award, there’s an amazing team of staff that I work with here at the school, other teachers and everything that all work together on the projects that have led to this nomination.”

Chomut grew up in Shuniah just outside of Thunder Bay.

He is traveling to Vancouver on March 30 to attend the awards in person.