AHS orchestra teacher and recipient of the 2024 GRAMMY Music Educator Award, Annie Ray was in attendance at The Grammys on Sun. Feb. 4th in Los Angeles, California. At the event, Ray was recognized for her outstanding achievements in music education.

Ray was selected from over 2,000 initial nominees and as the winner will receive a $10,000 honorarium and a matching grant for their school’s music program.

The AHS music department plans to use the matching $10,000 grant in a variety of ways.

“The money is going towards cellos, student scholarships, spring trip, and access to other student opportunities that normally require money to take down barriers with that. There are also other exciting collaborations coming up,” AHS Orchestra teacher Annie Ray said.

The GRAMMYs are recognized as the highest prestigious honor in music worldwide and are known as music’s biggest event of the year. Each year the award show presents the Music Educator Award which is meant to acknowledge educators from kindergarten up to college level who have cultivated meaningful and lasting efforts in the music education field and who also demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in schools.

Ray’s long list of GRAMMY preparations occurred for many months prior in the lead-up to the event. 

“It was really fun. I had to purchase a bunch of dresses and get ready, which was surprisingly stressful, like how do you dress for the Grammys? So there were a bunch of different events that I went to and then I had someone called a handler who took me around the entire time and put me in front of the media and introduced who I was at the actual event,” Ray said.

 Ray’s extraordinary work as an educator exceeds past school hours as she extends her passion of music education to the AHS community as the founder of multiple music education  programs including the Cat B program which specializes in teaching musical instruments to special education students.

“Besides the Annandale and Crescendo Orchestras, I founded and run the FCPS Parent Orchestra which has over 200 caregivers learning how to play their child’s instrument each year. I also run the equity and inclusion division for StringRise, am a clinician and mentor, and regular conference presenter. I also gig as a freelance harpist extensively,” Ray said.

In 2023, Ray won The FCPS Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year award for Ray’s outstanding dedication to providing music education to the community. 

On the event’s red carpet backstage in a one on one interview, Ray was asked who her students were most excited to meet, and despite the interviewing jokingly guessing Taylor Swift, Ray shares that her students were most excited for her to meet the R&B singer SZA.

“I  got to hang out with SZA backstage and we hit it off really well,”

Yet SZA was only one of the incredible stars Ray got to meet throughout the night 

“I loved meeting all the celebrities, that was so cool. Being hugged by Oprah Winfrey or by Taylor Swift was amazing,” Ray said. “At first, I was super starstruck, and then there was this moment where I stopped being starstruck because they are all just people and music is the reason that we all connected, right so we are connected to them too, they are just on a bigger stage.”

Thurs. Feb. 1st, AHS orchestra teacher Annie Ray has been named the winner of the ’24 GRAMMY Music Educator Award. Students, Faculty and friends and family of Ray gathered in the auditorium at 8 a.m. to watch the News of Ray’s winnings live on CBS.

The GRAMMYs are recognized as the highest prestigious honor in music worldwide and are known as music’s biggest event of the year.

 Each year the award show presents the Music Educator Award which is meant to acknowledge educators from kindergarten up to college level who have cultivated meaningful and lasting efforts in the music education field and who also demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in schools.

Candidates for the award undergo a rigorous and long selection process with many different rounds of selections including; nomination, quarter-finalist, semi-finalist, finalists, and then the winner of the award. Ray was selected from over 2,000 initial nominees and as the winner will receive a $10,000 honorarium and a matching grant for their school’s music program.