Ahead of the 2024 GRAMMYs, Virginia educator Annie Ray will receive the 2024 Music Educator Award during the Recording Academy's Special Merit Awards Ceremony on Sat, Feb. 3.
Ray is both the Orchestra Director and Performing Arts Department Chair at Annandale High School in Virginia's Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) system. She advocates for universal access to quality music education, and has developed creative opportunities to make music accessible to students of all demographics.
For example, her FCPS Parent Orchestra enables just under 200 caregivers to learn to play their child’s instrument each year. Ray also created the Crescendo Orchestra program to bring the joy of orchestra to high school students with severe developmental or intellectual disabilities. In January 2022, the program was featured in The Washington Post.
Based on this work, TEDx reached out and asked Ray to give a talk in April 2022. She has presented at numerous colleges and conferences on the topic and was named the 2023 FCPS Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year for her work on equity in education. Ray is also a member of the StringRise professional development team and was a 2023 Wolf Trap Educator Guarantee for the AHS partnership with GRAMMY-nominated artist Christylez Bacon.
She currently resides in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband Irving and their girls Eloise and Millie. She is an adventurer at heart, and her biggest bucket list item is to one day win "The Amazing Race."
As the Music Educator Award recipient, Ray will receive a $10,000 honorarium and matching grant for her school's music program. Nine additional finalists will receive a $1,000 honorarium and matching grants. The remaining 15 semifinalists will receive a $500 honorarium with matching school grants.
The nine semifinalists are:
Meg Byrne: Pleasant Valley High School Bettendorf, Iowa
Ernesta Chicklowski: Roosevelt Elementary Tampa, Florida
Michael Coelho: Ipswich Middle and High School Ipswich, Massachusetts
Antoine Dolberry: P.S. 103 Hector Fontanez School Bronx, New York
Jasmine Fripp: KIPP Nashville Collegiate High School Nashville, Tennessee
J.D. Frizzell: Briarcrest Christian School Eads, Tennessee
Coty Raven Morris: Portland State University Portland, Oregon
Kevin Schoenbach: Oswego High School Oswego, Illinois
Matthew Shephard: Meridian Early College High School Sanford, Michigan
The award is open to current U.S. music teachers, and anyone can nominate a teacher — students, parents, friends, colleagues, community members, school deans, and administrators. Teachers are also able to nominate themselves, and nominated teachers are notified and invited to fill out an application. Initial nominations were submitted from all 50 states.
Nominations and applications for the 2025 Music Educator Award are now open via grammymusicteacher.com.
The Music Educator Award program, including honorariums, is made possible by the generosity and support of The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation. In addition, the American Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, NAMM Foundation, and National Education Association support this program through outreach to their constituencies.
How To Watch The 2024 GRAMMYs Live: GRAMMY Nominations, Performers, Air Date, Red Carpet, Streaming Channel & More