Coty Raven Morris often reminds her students that love is a verb — and she lives by that philosophy each day as she spreads the transformative capacity of music education through her dynamic, multifaceted work.
Morris is a choir director, composer, on-air radio host, workshop leader, social media personality and children’s book author. She’s the founder of Being Human Together, an organization that normalizes taboo topics like mental health, systemic oppression, diversity and racism and provides opportunities to connect and converse through music.
She’s also the Hinckley Assistant Professor of Choir, Music Education and Social Justice in Portland State University’s School of Music & Theater. In this one-of-a-kind position, she spends her time leading PSU’s stellar Rose and Thorn Choirs and preparing music educators for future careers.
Outside the classroom, Morris partners with nonprofits and community groups, where she uses music as a vehicle to lift up marginalized communities and foster connection from a place of love and empathy — the values that inform all of her work.
Choir as a calling
Morris knows personally the life-changing power of making music with others.
After losing her mother and grandmother at a young age, Morris moved from her native New Orleans to Austin, Texas to stay with relatives. Despite the challenges of adjusting to a new environment, she jumped into school activities with full force, joining the cheer team, becoming the high school mascot and serving as the editor of the school newspaper.
After experiencing difficult family circumstances, she found herself living on her own at age 15, and decided to stay in Texas to finish high school. She spent her junior and senior years couch surfing and staying with families of her fellow students.
With Coty leading, this program can create a ripple effect, inspiring generations of future music educators to follow her lead.
It was during that time that her choir teacher played a recording of “Water Night” by internationally known composer Eric Whitacre in class. Morris was transfixed. “I just could not believe that there were people in the world who had that as their job,” she says.
At that moment, she knew that choir was her calling.
With this new certainty of purpose, Morris pursued her undergraduate degree in music education at Texas State University, and began teaching at public schools in Texas. When a beloved choir director and mentor passed away, Morris took over her high school choir classes, mentoring the students through the loss.
“I was concerned about those kids because I knew what it was like to be that kid,” she says. “I had students who had never experienced a death before, and I had students who felt like someone else had been taken from them again.”
Morris knew that she could help these young students navigate their grief and, as she worked with them, she started seeing how music and education could help individuals confront trauma and begin to heal.
Gaining momentum
Being Human Together started first as a mindset, then became a workshop that Morris presented in early 2020 at a music educator conference in Texas. The workshop allowed participants to have a dialogue about their experiences in and outside the classroom, and find common ground around challenging topics.
After the murder of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed, Being Human Together gained more momentum. Morris’ online workshops began to draw thousands of people, who came to connect around difficult topics such as the impacts of racism.
Photo by Chad LanningThis direct focus on social justice outside of the classroom was the key to the next phase in her career. It was also the reason PSU’s Barre Stoll Professor of Choral Music Ethan Sperry reached out to invite Morris to join the school’s music faculty in a newly created role.
When Sperry first met Morris, he knew she was perfect for the visiting assistant professorship, which formalized the connection between choral music and social outreach in the local community.
“This is a person who could not only help bring music to underserved populations but could also teach our students to do the same,” he says. “With Coty leading, this program can create a ripple effect, inspiring generations of future music educators to follow her lead.”
Modeling empathy through music
When Morris first arrived at Portland State, she wanted to start addressing the city’s most pressing social issues right away.
“I remember thinking that I was going to almost ‘Mary Poppins’ our houseless population, and just get everyone together singing — musical magic,” she says.
She quickly learned that the road from intention to impact can be hampered by obstacles, among them limited resources and time. She also discovered that community organizations were stretched thin and facing unforeseen obstacles like the Omicron Covid variant and, later, a long strike at a local school district.
But stumbling blocks can be opportunities when approached with the right mindset.
“I realized last year that all of these stumbling blocks are stepping stones because they’re actually allowing me to learn,” says Morris. “As I built this new job, I needed to see that when we expect these systems to all be streamlined and work perfectly together, it doesn’t help. Humans are not machines.”
The most important thing to teach our students is a love of music, and that building a community first is more important than getting the right notes
Instead, Morris says, she had to learn that the real objective is not for all the systems to work together perfectly. It’s to be flexible enough to be good neighbors and good citizens as we work together to instill change in our communities.
Despite the hurdles, Morris has made strides toward some exciting collaborations in Portland.
She’s started leading community choir rehearsals for organizations like Street Roots, the investigative newspaper sold by people experiencing houselessness. And she’s involved in community engagement groups with the Oregon Symphony, where she highlights human connections through music.
Investing in the future
In addition to her broad portfolio of community work, Morris is focusing on this spring’s Being Human Together Youth Summit. Students from several Portland-area high schools will experience a day of community, mentorship and music at the second-annual summit in PSU’s Lincoln Hall.
The summit represents the three branches of Being Human Together — neighbors, youth and community — and gives Morris a chance to be on the offense with Portland’s community concerns.
“An investment in youth is an investment in the future, and so many of our consistently houseless neighbors are young people who have found themselves in a state of distress,” she says. “Somewhere between the pandemic and what’s happening in our schools and support systems, they weren’t able to have the resources they needed — resources in the form of human beings or, as I call them, consistent annoying adults.”
As part of her Being Human Together work, Morris has also brought people together for community sings, where the entire audience joins the choir and becomes a giant choral village.
By creating opportunities for individuals to come together and sing in community with people of all backgrounds, housed and unhoused, Morris is asking everyone to slow down and see one another fully.
We should all be people who look through lenses that consider points of view other than our own. It’s called empathy.
“We should all be people who look through lenses that consider points of view other than our own,” she says. “It’s called empathy. If my job title was Professor of Choir, Music Education and Empathy – my gosh!”
Morris passes on these teachings in her work at PSU, where she mentors future music educators and teaches them the tools to carry her mission and message out into the world.
And the world is taking notice. This year, Morris was named a top-ten finalist for the 2024 Music Educator Grammy Award, selected out of a pool of more than 2,000 music teachers from around the country.
“Coty's energy and positivity in front of a group — based on our shared human experiences and authenticity — teach me to be better,” says Kimi Gubler, a master’s student in choral conducting. “Her passion for conducting has transferred to the way I conduct my choirs.”
Morris’ vision is to prepare future teachers to carry on this work in ever-expanding circles, and learn to tailor their approach to fit the specific needs of their communities, whether they are working with elementary school kids, educators under stress or elders in crisis.
“I knew I would love working with and learning from Coty when I realized we shared some core values,” says master’s student Molly Kerns-Clapp. “We both believe that the most important thing to teach our students is a love of music and that building a community first is more important than getting the right notes. Seeing Coty put those beliefs into action every day is incredibly inspiring.”