Keith Urban to Receive CRS Artist Humanitarian Award

Country Radio Seminar will recognize Keith Urban for his charitable endeavors in Nashville in February. The country superstar is set to receive the Artist Humanitarian Award for 2016.

Keith Urban

CRS is one of the key music industry events in Music City each year, bringing together artists, radio programmers and media for several days of interviews, preview performances and conferences that help set the agenda for much of the coming year in country music. The presentation of Urban’s award will serve as the official kickoff of CRS 2016, which is slated to take place at the Omni hotel in downtown Nashville from Feb. 8-10. Last year’s recipients, Lady Antebellum, will be on hand to present the award.

Urban has been very active over the years in various fundraising concerts, including the annual All for the Hall benefit for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which has raised more than $3 million to date. Additionally, the “Break on Me” singer been a strong supporter of the Grammy in the Schools program, Mr. Holland’s Opus Fund.

The singer-songwriter also gives his support to the Make-a-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where he is an advisory board member. Urban has visited the hospital and produces a calendar each year with all net proceeds going to St. Jude, raising more than $850,000 since 2003. He has supported our nation’s troops by donating his share of artist and publishing royalties from his song “For You,” which reached a total of $300,000, to the Navy SEALS Foundation.

He was also the first Ambassador for the CMA Foundation’s Education Program and has donated from his signature line, Urban guitars, to Music Education Matters partner programs across the country, as well as the Grammy Foundation and its MusiCares program. Proceeds from the guitars have also gone to the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation to keep musical instruments in schools.

Additionally, Urban played a key role in fundraising in the wake of the Nashville floods in 2010.
“Keith Urban is a true humanitarian who gives out of love, passion, spirit, and generosity,” CRS Executive Director Bill Mayne says in a press release. “It’s been an honor to witness quietly from the sidelines the amount of time, talent and passion that Keith has selflessly given over his life and career. The impact and reach of his generosity has effected so many and is so broad in scope and depth — his is a bar of humanitarian effort that we all can be inspired by!”