Lenora Helm Hammonds Is Turning Passion Into Plan A

The 2024 appointment of Dr. Lenora Helm Hammonds as dean of the Professional Education Division marked a return to her alma mater, where the paths she followed for four decades as performer, recording artist, composer, entrepreneurial businesswoman, and educator all converge. “I’ve lived the journey for every department in my division,” she says. That division encompasses the departments of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Music Business/Management, Music Education, Music Therapy, and Professional Music. “It’s a wonderful time to have everything I’ve learned coalesce.”

During her career, Hammonds has worked in areas across the industry spectrum, from her beginnings as a vocalist and bandleader performing at functions in Boston to touring as a backup singer with contemporary artists Freddie Jackson and Michael Franks, working as an administrator for major talent agencies, founding her own record label and publishing company, traveling internationally as a jazz ambassador for the US Department of State and the Kennedy Center, and becoming a Fulbright senior music specialist. In her varied pursuits as an educator, she has created an outreach program for public school youth in New York City, developed curriculum and led vocal workshops at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and guided graduate-level songwriters at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. Add to that her 20 years of service at North Carolina Central University, which culminated in tenured professor and music department chair positions.

Hammonds was raised in humble circumstances in Chicago’s South Side by parents dedicated to providing all they could for their five children. “My parents showed us that through hard work you can do anything,” she recalls. She speaks of getting “bit by the music bug” at a third-grade talent show where she and her classmates did a lip-synching skit. She took trumpet, piano, and organ lessons in elementary school, but by high school was singing songs by Earth, Wind & Fire; Pink Floyd; Michael Jackson; and others with a 10-piece band. “I was also a geeky science kid then, going to science camps,” she adds. When it came time for college, she was accepted to Purdue and Cornell and contemplated a medical career. However, through members of her cover band, she had become a jazz fan. “Someone put on John Coltrane’s rendition of ‘Nancy (with the Laughing Face),’” she relates. “There was something about the power and feeling I got listening to Coltrane that made me want to understand what he was doing so I could do it.” Once her acceptance letter from Berklee arrived, Hammonds’s heart told her to choose music over science.

In the fall of 1979 she entered Berklee, where her student peers included future bright lights like jazz artists Branford Marsalis ’80 ’06H and Terri Lyne Carrington BM ’83 ’03H, and soon-to-be rock stars Steve Vai ’79 ’00H and Aimee Mann ’80. Hammonds chose to major in film scoring, inspired by the music of Quincy Jones ’51 '83H, Lalo Schifrin, and John Williams ’80H. “I was part of the first class in that major,” she says. “I wanted to learn all about writing music, hoping to become the female version of Quincy.” In 1983, Hammonds became the first Black woman to earn a Berklee film scoring degree.

After graduation, she remained in Boston, singing with a local wedding band and temping as an office worker. While taking the train to New York City periodically for voice lessons, she would read the newspaper, and on one trip she spotted an ad for an administrator job at the preeminent Norby Walters’ talent agency. Desiring to dive into the New York music scene, Hammonds interviewed, got the position, and moved to New York. “The agency was booking Patti LaBelle [’96H], Luther Vandross, Tiffany, New Kids on the Block, and many others,” she says. “I was booking gigs, interacting with managers, and learning a lot about the music business.” At night, she gigged extensively, frequently appearing at jazz clubs such as Birdland and the Blue Note. After self-releasing her debut album, she inked her first contract with J-Curve Records. Since 1995, she has released eight albums and has recorded with jazz luminaries including Ron Carter ’05H, Dave Liebman, Stanley Cowell, Andrew Hill ’07H, and former classmate Branford Marsalis.

She also turned her attention to nonprofit arts cultural work in the city. With a like-minded friend, she launched the Harmony Program to provide free instruments and Saturday lessons to elementary school students in the five boroughs. In addition to working in the city, Hammonds did runouts for concerts and master classes. After an engagement at North Carolina Central University, an HBCU (historically Black college or university), Dr. Ira Wiggins, NCCU’s director of jazz studies, inquired about her interest in joining the faculty to develop their vocal jazz department. Not wanting to leave New York, she declined the offer for a full-time post, but accepted a part-time position, to which she commuted from the city. That job would prove life-changing. 

“I’ve lived the journey for every department in my division. It’s a wonderful time to have everything I’ve learned coalesce.”

Lenora Helm Hammonds

“The first time I went into the orchestra room, I looked at the concert band and saw about 100 Black and Brown kids,” she says. “I’d never seen that many students of color with instruments in their hands. I cried and thought maybe this was the next thing I could do to impact the lives of young people. I thought that perhaps it was time for me to shift from New York to North Carolina. When the winds of change start blowing, you have to stop and listen. I really believe that your path is purposed, and you need to go where the path is leading.” Hammonds followed that path to NCCU, ultimately becoming a full-time professor and meeting her future husband, Fred Hammonds.

She was extraordinarily productive throughout her years at NCCU. She carved out time to complete master’s degree studies in jazz performance and voice at East Carolina University, and later earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in music education through an online program at Boston University. Hammonds also received grants to support her composing, undertook residencies and fellowships (including two Fulbrights), and was celebrated at the 2022 Jazz Music Awards with the inaugural Jazz Educator Award. Additionally, she filled leadership roles in the Jazz Education Network, Jazz Vocal Advisory Board for Juilliard Jazz, and more. She also penned the score for the 2023 film The Problem of the Hero and continued making albums. Her ninth album, The Sistering, was released in March. 

Now Hammonds is fully engaged in applying her hard-won knowledge to Berklee’s Professional Education Division, where she has started unfolding her vision. “My goal is to have students think differently about this division,” Hammonds says. “We don’t want them to think the courses we teach are just requirements to get through. I want them to see what we offer here as part of the main course.”

She advocates for students gaining a comprehensive view of everything a music career entails—much as her own life experience has given her. “A musician’s income rests on four pillars: performing, recording, publishing, and intellectual property/merchandising,” she says. “The degrees offered at Berklee bring opportunities to earn money through all of these. Adjacent to what students learn in their major, they must understand how to be a freelancer, run their business, protect their intellectual property, and expect that they will teach at some point in their careers—even if it’s from the stage. Educators are in a climate now where people outside the performing arts are stressing that artists need a plan B. I’m wholly against that idea. Artists need their plan A to be the focus. The Professional Education Division holds the key to that.”

See the full Spring 2026 issue of Berklee Today.