Lois Deloatch

Durham, North Carolina

Lois Deloatch, Nnenna Freelon, Lenora Zenzalai Helm & Kate McGarry are The Sistering. Just as the construction term "sistering" involves strengthening a beam by adding another alongside it, fastening them together, these four vocal powerhouses have joined forces to create a new musical collective, The Sistering. All North Carolina-based, these longtime friends—Lois Deloatch, Nnenna Freelon, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, and Kate McGarry—have collaborated on their forthcoming album, The Sistering. The 12-track recording features original compositions that blend jazz, ballads, gospel, and folk, reflecting on themes of life, family, and loss.

For each artist, this collaboration has been a deeply meaningful experience. Deloatch describes the project as "art, life, truth, and clarity," a coming together of "real friends" to "write and sing and remember and dream and celebrate each other." Freelon calls it "the most soul satisfying artistic connection" she's had in a long time, noting that the "creative friction" challenges each artist while pushing, pulling, and holding them up. Helm feels The Sistering has helped her embrace sisterhood in a new way and grow as a creative woman. McGarry adds that the project has been a "container of creativity, of laughter, of support and expansion, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced." She says it started with friends around good food and wine, but quickly evolved into sharing "heartaches, hopes, joys, tears and speaking our deepest creative dreams into being."

Lois Deloatch is a vocalist and songwriter with a dynamic contralto voice steeped in her Southern heritage. With six recordings, she is an advocate for the redemptive power of music and, she has performed with jazz greats like Ellis Marsalis and Billy Taylor.

Nnenna Freelon, a seven-time Grammy nominee and a 2023 inductee in the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, is a captivating vocalist and storyteller. With 15 albums, she has shared her verve and vision since being discovered by Ellis Marsalis. She is the creator of the Great Grief podcast and the author of Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss, published by Duke University Press.

Lenora Zenzalai Helm is an acclaimed vocalist, composer, and educator who serves as Dean of the Professional Educational Division at Berklee College of Music. She has worked with artists like Ron Carter and Michael Franks, released eight albums, and is a two-time Fulbright Senior Music Specialist.

Kate McGarry is a Grammy-nominated vocalist, composer, and educator with a lithe, nuanced voice. Voted a top Rising Star by Down Beat magazine, she has collaborated with jazz stars like Fred Hersch and Maria Schneider, released eight albums, and served as a Jazz Ambassador to 16 countries.

Kate, Nnenna and Lois contributed essays to Lenora’s forthcoming book, Sing Vocal Jazz, Teach Vocal Jazz and are collaborating on a book of their original compositions.Together, these four women have come together in the spirit of sonic fellowship to become The Sistering, proving, as Freelon puts it, that "women do encourage and hold each other up in love and sisterhood."

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Presentation(s):

• The Sistering: Advancing the tradition of collaboration in Jazz. How four wise women joined forces to tell a new story.

  Thursday, January 8, 2026
  4:00 PM - 4:50 PM CST