A Building without Walls: A Biography and Conductor’s Analysis of Lena McLin’s The Church Cantata

The September 2023 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “A Building without Walls: A Biography and Conductor’s Analysis of Lena McLin’s The Church Cantata” by Khyle Wooten. Following is a portion from the article.
_________________

Lena McLin (b. 1928) is one of the most influential African American women composers of the twentieth century. McLin composed nearly three hundred songs for choir, both sacred and secular, and a host of art songs and spiritual arrangements for solo voice. She also made significant contributions to the field of music education via published texts and other independent scholarship. Little, however, has been published concerning her life and music. While a large portion of choral works remain published, few of them have been performed or professionally recorded.

Subsequently, American conductors, choruses, and audiences await exposure to the abundance of McLin’s choral works. The author hopes that this article will begin the forthcoming incorporation of the McLin choral catalog in the repertoire of American choruses. Because Lena McLin was among the few prolific and respected African American women composers of the twentieth-century in the United States, her music is a logical source point for this inclusion. Her choral work, The Church Cantata, is representative of her style and provides a model introduction to her music.

___

Read the full article in the September 2023 issue of Choral Journal. acda.org/choraljournal