Lenora Helm Hammonds

Lenora, a Chicago native, is a multi-hyphenate educator who currently serves as Dean of the Professional Education Division at Berklee College of Music. From 2005 to 2024, she held various positions at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), including tenured Full Professor in the Department of Music and Jazz Studies Program, and Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Graduate Programs, Jazz Studies. Distinctions include awards as a GRAMMY Music Educator of the Year Quarterfinalist, Jazz Educator of Distinction (Jazz Music Awards Foundation,) and Berklee College of Music Gospel Hall of Fame Inductee. She continues to serve on the Jazz Vocal Advisory Board at Juilliard Jazz. Her academic leadership is conjoined to four decades as a jazz recording and performing artist p/k/a Lenora Zenzalai Helm with nine solo albums, including the top 10 JazzWeek charts album release, The Sistering. Her discography includes appearances on over a dozen jazz and contemporary music albums. Composer career highlights include being a MacDowell composer fellow, and the first vocal jazz Chamber Music America/Doris Duke’s New Jazz Works composer award recipient.

Appearances as a Carnegie Hall guest conductor in the 2024 and 2026 MidAmerica Productions seasons culminated over twenty years conducting vocal and instrumental jazz bands and ensembles. Her conducting accolades include directing international and national high school and collegiate all-state jazz competitions, including Jack Rudin Collegiate Jazz Championships, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Her big band, Tribe Jazz Orchestra, boasts about half of the members being iconic women in jazz. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring/Voice from Berklee College of Music, a Master of Music, Jazz Performance/East Carolina University and Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education from Boston University. As a published author her work is at the intersection of jazz, intercultural maturity, and digital humanities. Her vocal jazz performance pedagogy textbook Sing Vocal Jazz, Teach Vocal Jazz, highlights twenty-three vocal jazz educators, and is on Routledge/Taylor-Francis. Catch her TEDxBerklee Boston talk What Jazz Improvisation Can Teach You About Communication.. She makes her home between Durham, NC and Boston, MA with her husband Fred Hammonds. www.LenoraHelm.com

“Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald