PSU’s Coty Raven Morris Named a Semifinalist for GRAMMY 2025 Music Educator Award

Portland State University’s School of Music & Theater faculty member Coty Raven Morris has, for the second year in a row, been named a semifinalist for the GRAMMY 2025 Music Educator Award.

Morris, the Hinckley assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice, is one of just 25 music teachers selected as semifinalists for the award. Those 25 were selected out of an initial pool of more than 2,400 nominees from 49 states across the country.

This highly competitive award honors music educators from across the United States who have “made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools,” according to a GRAMMY Awards announcement.

Morris’s teaching at PSU, where she leads the Rose and Thorn Choirs, is distinguished by her compassionate, uplifting mentorship of students and her focus on creating a loving creative community where students and individuals of all backgrounds can thrive as learners, musicians and leaders.

“Not only was joy at the center of the classroom and music making, but it was also a place you could show up as yourself and that would be okay, and more than that, it would be accepted and loved and praised,” one student said of studying with Morris.

“It’s very clear that she believes that she is not the only teacher in the room, and she pours her heart into giving us all the things we need to be successful and comfortable and proud of ourselves,” said another student.

Morris is the founder of Being Human Together, a community utilizing music education to normalize challenging topics through conversation and connection, tackling subjects like mental health, oppression, diversity and inclusivity. Under the umbrella of Being Human Together, as part of her work at Portland State University, Morris launched an initiative that brings together people from all backgrounds, including those who lack stable housing, to participate in community choir. As part of this initiative, Morris hosts “community sings” — joyful, welcoming group singing events that are open to anyone who wants to join. 

Morris holds a master of music in choral conducting from Michigan State University and a bachelor of music from Texas State University. A sought-after choral clinician, she leads workshops and presentations at educational conferences across the nation, from the American Choral Directors Association to the National Association for Music Education and beyond. She also teaches choir workshops at camps, elementary schools and high schools around the country, and she brings the joy of music to radio listeners in the Portland area and around the Internet as a contributing host and producer on AllClassical Radio, and the host of the seasonal program “Sound in Print.”

“I am ecstatic to celebrate this recognition with my community here at Portland State, my family on the east coast, and my peers and colleagues in the south,” Morris said. “This honor, together with my students’ dedication to the arts as a catalyst to change, has been a motivator and has only raised the bar for our expectations of ourselves and the music we make.”

The finalists for the 2025 GRAMMY Music Educator Award will be announced in December 2024, and the final recipient will be recognized in January 2025 as part of the 67th GRAMMY Awards events in Los Angeles.

Music lovers and community members can experience a “community sing” with Morris and her students at “Threads of Harmony,” a concert featuring the PSU University Choir and Community Chorus, Friday, Dec. 6, at First Congregational Church in Portland.