Dr. McLin Passed Away on October 3, at the age of 95
A celebration of life homegoing service will be held for Rev. Dr. Lena Mae McLin, known in the music industry as “the woman who launched a thousand careers,” on October 21 at 11:00 a.m. at the United Church of Hyde Park, 1448 E. 53rd St. in Chicago. Dr. McLin died of heart failure on October 3, at the age of 95.
Dr. McLin, who became one of the nation’s most revered educators of music and humanities, established a foundation for many students who became some of the biggest stars in entertainment. Jennifer Hudson, Chaka Khan, Mandel “Mandy” Patinkin, Robert “Bob” Seger, Robert “R” Kelly, Robert Sims, Mark Rucker, Deitra Farr and the late Kim English were just a few of the famous and award-winning entertainers who were taught by Dr. McLin during her six decades as a music educator, composer and voice coach.
She was born in Atlanta on September 5, 1928, and moved to Chicago at the age of 6 to live with her uncle Thomas A. Dorsey, who is known worldwide as the father of Gospel music. She attended McCosh Elementary School and was a member of her uncle’s famed choir at the historic Pilgrim Baptist Church.
After returning to Atlanta for high school, she earned a degree in piano and violin studies at Spelman College. After college, she moved back to Chicago in 1959 and began her music education career at Harlan High School. However, Dr. McLin’s most notable stint of her teaching journey occurred at Kenwood Academy where she taught for 30 years. She directed a choir that was championed as one of the nation’s best, and she was also noted for the gift of identifying students who had the talent to succeed in the industry. In 1992, she retired from teaching in the public school setting, but continued private instruction at her South Shore residence, hosting voice lessons in her living room.
“I’ll never forget one day in chorus,” said Patinkin, a former student known for his work in musical theatre, television and film. “She said, sing something. I sang and I thought I was going to get in trouble. She said, ‘Child, anybody who tells you not to use that voice, you tell them come see Lena!’, and she gave me the courage to use my voice any way I chose, and I’ll never forget it.”
As an arranger and composer, Dr. McLin’s body of work is extremely diverse with more than 400 published works for church, school and generational performance settings. Her extensive composition library includes cantatas, arias, pop songs, anthems, choral works, Gospel and spirituals. She also has former students all over the world sharing her methods and messages, while her musical works are being performed by the Minnesota Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta and a multitude of universities and conservatories around the globe.
In addition to her fascinating life journey in the arts, Dr. McLin founded Holy Vessel Baptist Church in Hyde Park in 1981, becoming an ordained minister, where she pastored but also served as Minister of Music.
She received two honorary doctorates from Spelman College and Virginia Union University for her incredible outreach and excellence in the arts. In 2003, the Chicago Music Awards presented her with its Lifetime Achievement Award. She retired from teaching music and voice lessons in 2019.
“Ms. McLin was the first woman I ever met who wrote and composed music,” said Nikki Lynette, a former student who is a recording artist and activist. “The work I’m doing now with my own musical is a direct result of her telling me that I could, long before I knew I had it in me. She saw greatness in people and helped us find it in ourselves.”
At Kenwood Academy, she was known for her “no nonsense demeanor” that was firm, but also presented a “motherly approach” to teaching, said ABC 7 Weekend Morning Anchor and Consumer Investigative Reporter Samantha Chatman, who was one of Dr. McLin’s students and a member of her church. “I am also blessed to have known her. As a former student and member of her church, she always taught me to dream big and never forget where I came from.”
Fox 32 Evening Anchor Dawn Hasbrouck took voice lessons from Dr. McLin for years, recalling Dr. McLin made her sing proper classical music before the songs she wanted to sing. “She is the reason I first majored in voice in college before changing careers,” Hasbrouck said. “…Her legacy lives on through the music and careers of her students.”
Dr. McLin was proud of the success of her students.
“I am just happy to see them going on, and I thank God for allowing me to be some help in directing them,” she told former CBS2 News journalist Harry Porterfield during an interview 10 years ago. “I am a strong believer in right, and a strong believer in love, and a strong believer in discipline, and a strong believer in understanding. I think that comes together for a wonderful balance, because everybody I see, I see good in them.”
Her legacy also continues in her family with her grandson, William Kurk, a noted musician and educator in Chicago, who had been under her tutelage since birth.
“On behalf of the family, we want the public to know that she had a very impactful life toward those she taught and those she touched with her own music, as well as her arrangements,” Kurk said. “Her Saturday voice classes were by far the most unique thing about her, because that is something you couldn’t experience with any other teacher. That is something you have to know and a lot of students who were a part of that will definitely attest to it.
“She took a lot of students into her home and taught them every Saturday morning, and she would have a living room full of people who were taking voice lessons. Her calling was to help people and to also preserve a certain element of music that is not being preserved, which is God’s spirituals, Gospel, the blues and classicals. Hopefully, her impact will continue through everything she has done for her students and everybody in the world.”
