Photo by: Chi Brown

"Lenora Zenzalai Helm is a singer with all the right stuff: a musician in the broadest and most complete definition of the word, with an expansive vision that subsumes category. The breadth of her expression is staggering…her technical prowess is phenomenal…superb creative arranging skills…thoughtful composer. (She) has plenty in her arsenal of talents."

- Pianist/Composer, Stanley Cowell

"When faced with the question, "Can anything good come from the Southside of Chicago?", there are two obvious answers: First Lady Michelle Obama, and North Carolina Central University Assistant Professor Lenora Helm Hammonds."

- Myra Wooten, NCCU Now (Nov 10, 2014)

"A Blend of wiry strength and ethereal charm that set her apart from the female vocalists crowding the jazz scene... Without compromising her debt to the most stringent jazz grammar, her light-against-dark phrasing revealed a love of pop and soul that gave fresh, heartfelt meaning..."

-Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Sun Times

Lenora Helm Hammonds Named a Lifetime Achiever by Marquis Who’s Who

Ms. Helm has been endorsed by Marquis Who’s Who as a leader in the music industry

Dr. Lenora Helm Hammonds is a Chicago IL native, Former U.S. Jazz Ambassador, two-time Fulbright Senior Music Specialist, and a tenured, Full Professor in the Department of Music and Jazz Studies Program at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). She is Chair for the Department of Music and Director of Graduate Programs, Jazz Studies, and author of several academic and student initiatives, including the NEA-sponsored Teaching Artist Certificate program. Her published research on pioneering online curricula and pedagogy for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) with teams from global universities garnered the inaugural International Javett Jazz Music Scholar Award from University of Pretoria, South Africa, facilitating a busy lecture and guest residency schedule. Her areas of scholarship of practice are in undergraduate and graduate level courses in vocal jazz performance, jazz ear training, jazz pedagogy and songwriting, and a Director of the NCCU Vocal Jazz Ensemble.  

Lenora’s dream for creating access to under-served global populations interested in vocal jazz education was realized in the creation of a library of online vocal training programs at www.LenoraHelm.online. Her research interests are at the intersection of digital humanities, intercultural competence, and Jazz, and is a published author with Routledge, Taylor & Francis, and Springer. Her vocal jazz performance pedagogy textbook, Sing Vocal Jazz, Teach Vocal Jazz is due out on Routledge, early 2025. Her dissertation, A Jazz Orientation of the Three-Dimensional Developmental Trajectory of the Intercultural Maturity Model (ProQuest Publishing 28770684 ) gleaned a new theoretical framework for examining intercultural maturity and Jazz. She has served on numerous music education boards, including National Executive Board member of National Association of Schools of Music, (NAfME,), New York Arts in Education Roundtable, and is past president of International Women in Jazz. You can learn more about her projects in academia at https://www.nccu.edu/employee/lhelm.

In June 2024, she made her conducting debut at Carnegie Hall for MidAmerica Productions. The event featured her vocal jazz arrangements of John Coltrane’s Dear Lord (penned with her lyrics as A Conversation with God), and Hale Smith’s, The Valley Wind. Both pieces were adapted for 100 jazz voices and sung by collegiate and high-school choirs from across the U.S. The large choral ensemble was supported with her chamber jazz orchestra, Tribe Jazz Orchestra. Inaugural recipient of the 2022 Jazz Educator of Distinction award from Jazz Music Awards foundation, academic award highlights include a Duke University-NCCU John Hope Franklin Digital Humanities Fellowship, and receiving the highest faculty honor in the state of NC, the 2021 UNC Board of Governors Excellence in Teaching Award. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring and Voice from Berklee College of Music (’82), a Master of Music, Jazz Performance from East Carolina University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education from Boston University.

Her achievements in academia are in addition to more than four decades as a jazz recording artist. P/K/A Lenora Zenzalai Helm. She is a 2021-22 Chamber Music America Residency Presenting Jazz Consortium recipient. Her 2022 film score projects include a feature film, The Problem of the Hero (David zum Brunnen), a winner over ten film festivals including the 2023 Sante Fe Film Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, Santa Fe Film Festival, Naples Film Festival and St. Louis International Film Festival. Composer highlights include a 2023 Garth Newel Piano Quartet composition commission. Awards: Chamber Music America/Doris Duke’s New Jazz Works, a MacDowell Colony composer fellowship, music for ESPN Black History Month ads.

Her ensemble (inspired to change the face of large ensembles usually lacking gender diversity) is Tribe Jazz Orchestra®, a diverse group of men and women, from around the globe, based in North Carolina. She can be heard on over twenty albums as a guest artist or featured performer with some of the biggest names in Jazz, including Ron Carter, Dave Liebman, Antonio Hart, Andrew Hill, Branford Marsalis and Mulgrew Miller.  Her eight solo releases on her own label, Zenzalai Music, are distributed by RedEye Worldwide. Recent recordings For the Love of Big Band (2020) featuring her ensemble, Tribe Jazz Orchestra® and Journeywoman (2023) featuring her ensemble Tribe Jazz Orchestra Nonet both reached the top-20 on JazzWeek radio and Top 10 streamed and downloaded on PlayMPE.

Visit her at www.LenoraHelm.com