Stephen T. Cox is a music educator, speaker, curriculum designer, and advocate for creative music-making in schools. He is the Director of Music Education for the Willis Wonderland Foundation, where he leads the Musical Wonders program, a national initiative helping teachers bring songwriting, improvisation, composition, arranging, and student-centered music-making into classrooms.
Stephen was named the 2022 Grammy Music Educator of the Year and has spent his career exploring how music education can better support creativity, community, student agency, and lifelong musicianship.
After more than a decade as a Texas band director, he has worked with teachers and students across the country through workshops, online resources, curriculum development, and speaking engagements.
His work focuses on helping music classrooms move beyond performance-only models and toward experiences where students make creative choices, build confidence, collaborate meaningfully, and see themselves as musicians.
Stephen’s approach draws from traditional music education, popular music pedagogy, songwriting, technology, and motivation research, especially self-determination theory.
Whether he is leading a workshop, building teacher resources, writing about music education, or developing creative classroom tools, Stephen’s goal is the same: to help more people experience music as something they can make, share, and carry with them for life.
Stephen lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife, Stephanie, and their three children, Aubree, Chuck, and Ceasar.
