The Josh Turner Scholarship Fund For The Arts is currently accepting scholarship applications through February 1st, 2022. Established by Turner and his wife Jennifer in 2008, those eligible to apply must be high school seniors from South Carolina wishing to enter the music business or undertake a career in the arts. The scholarship is intended to support students primarily from rural areas, and applicants must be focusing on a career that will introduce them to various opportunities in the music business or some discipline of the arts.
Growing up in rural South Carolina, Turner attended a small school and did not have the benefit of a comprehensive arts program at his high school. As a result, he felt behind his fellow students upon entering Belmont University as Commercial Vocal Performance major. “I had never been taught music theory or heard about ear training. It was like a whole new language for me and I felt lost,” shares Turner. “There were only 75 people in my graduating class, and that translated into ‘not a lot of opportunities’ when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs, but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, a chorus the next, but nothing ever lasted.” Turner’s experience at Nashville’s Belmont University, alongside his wife Jennifer’s love of the arts (also a Belmont music major), inspired the couple to start a scholarship fund that would jump-start high school students into a future in the music business or the arts.
The Josh Turner Scholarship Fund For The Arts supports students planning a career that will introduce them to various opportunities in the music business, from performing, writing, or publishing, to managing or producing, or some discipline of the arts, such as graphic design, photography, or painting to name a few. “The requirement to apply for the fund is that the student should be interested in pursuing a job that is directly associated with the music industry or the arts. You don’t have to be a singer or songwriter, so that makes the possibilities endless,” Turner says.
The application can be found at https://www.cfmt.org/grants-scholarships/.
About Josh Turner
With his deep bass voice, Turner has sold more than six million records, reached 3.7 billion global streams, and has become a favorite and unforgettable hitmaker on country radio. With timeless songs like “Long Black Train” and “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” Turner’s five No. 1 singles include “Your Man,” of which the official music video recently surpassed 100 million views. This comes on the heels of the release of Your Man Deluxe Edition, celebrating 15 years of Turner’s iconic double Platinum-selling album, as well as the release of the mini documentary “Josh Turner Your Man 15th Anniversary” (Mini Doc). The Double-Platinum-selling “Would You Go With Me,” featured on Your Man Deluxe Edition, recently experienced a viral surge across TikTok leading to a jump in streaming which landed the classic country tune on Spotify’s US Viral 50 along with Spotify Viral charts in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Posting more than 3.7M weekly streams, “Would You Go With Me” moved inside the Top 35 on the Country streaming chart and ranked HOT on Amazon Music’s Voice Index. A native of South Carolina, Turner has received six Inspirational Country Music Awards, and has been nominated for two GRAMMY Awards, five CMA Awards, two ACM Awards, one CMT Award, and seven ACA Awards. To support music and arts education, he created The Josh Turner ScholarshipFund for the Arts to help students pursue their studies in these fields. Turner and his wife Jennifer, whom he met as a student at Nashville’s Belmont University, have four sons. For more information, please visit www.joshturner.com
