Music News

Nineteen people have been elected or re-elected to the Recording Academy’s 42-member board of trustees, including Taylor Hanson, a member of the brother trio Hanson, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997 with “MMMBop”; Sara Gazarek, who won her first Grammy on Feb. 4 for helping to arrange a new version of the classic “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”; and publishing veteran Mike Knobloch, president of music and publishing at NBCUniversal. Their terms took effect on Saturday (June 1).

“I’m honored to welcome this amazing group of creatives to our board of trustees,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement. “Our board’s expertise and dedication to helping music people everywhere has been essential to all we have achieved at the Academy. However, the work never stops, and I look forward to working alongside our new and current trustees on ways we can continue to provide guidance for our music community.”

Of the 42 trustees that serve on the national board, 30 are elected by the chapter board of governors (15 each year) and eight are elected directly by voting and professional members of the Academy (four each year). The remaining four seats are comprised of the national trustee officers, who are elected by the board of trustees once every two years. The current national trustee officers, who are all currently midterm, are Tammy Hurt (chair), Dr. Chelsey Green (vice chair), Gebre Waddell (secretary/treasurer) and Christine Albert (chair emeritus).

“Welcoming our newly elected trustees is always such an exciting time at the Academy,” Hurt said in a statement. “With new ideas to contribute to our board and the eagerness to helping change music, I have no doubt that together this year’s board of trustees will continue our commitment to fostering a diverse and representative music industry.”

The 2024-25 board includes six Grammy winners, including two who just won prizes at the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 4. Those newly-minted winners are J. Ivy, who won best spoken word poetry album for the second year in a row for The Light Inside, and Gazarek, who won best arrangement, instruments and vocals for the aforementioned new version of “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” by säje featuring Jacob Collier.

The four other Grammy winners on the current board are Angélique Kidjo, who won her fifth Grammy two years ago, for best global music album for Mother Nature; songwriter Jonathan Yip, who won two Grammys six years ago for co-writing the Bruno Mars smash “That’s What I Like”; Ledisi, who won best traditional R&B performance three years ago for “Anything for You”; and Cheche Alara, who won best Latin pop album five years ago for Sincera.

Three members of the current board of trustees served on the Recording Academy’s all-important television committee for the 66th Grammy Awards: Alara, Hurt and Knobloch.

All positions on the board of trustees are subject to two, two-year term limits.

These newly elected or re-elected trustees joined the Academy’s midterm trustees to uphold the Academy’s mission, which the Academy says is “to serve and represent the music community at-large through its commitment to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, fight for creators’ rights, protect music people in need, preserve music’s history, and invest in its future.”

You can find the full list of the Academy’s board of trustees, chapter officers and bylaws here.

The full list of the Academy’s board of trustees is shown below. An asterisk signifies that they were elected or re-elected this year.

Cheche Alara*

Christine Albert

Marcella Araica

Julio Bagué    

Nikisha Bailey*         

Larry Batiste  

Marcus Baylor

Jennifer Blakeman*   

Evan Bogart   

Torae Carr*    

Dani Deahl*   

Maria Egan*  

Fletcher Foster*         

Anna Frick     

EJ Gaines*     

Kennard Garrett         

Sara Gazarek*

Tracy Gershon

Dr. Chelsey Green

Dave Gross*  

Jennifer Hanson

Taylor Hanson*

Justin “Henny” Henderson*

Tammy Hurt   

J. Ivy  

Terry Jones*   

Angelique Kidjo

Mike Knobloch*        

Ledisi 

Eric Lilavois   

Susan Marshall           

Riggs Morales

Donn Thompson Morelli “Donn T”  

Ms. Meka Nism*       

Ashley Shabankareh*

Ken Shepherd*          

Jessica Thompson*

Gebre Waddell

Paul Wall        

Wayna

Tamara Wellons*

Jonathan Yip