Remembering Cleo Laine

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family joins the music world in mourning the loss of English singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine. She died at home in Wavendon, England, on July 24, 2025, at the age of 97.

She was born of English and Jamaican heritage as Clementine Dinah Hitching on October 28, 1927, in Southall, Middlesex. At the age of 24, she first collaborated with John Dankworth (1927–2010) and soon changed her name to Cleo Laine. The two married in 1958 and performed and recorded together for over 50 years. For her career in music and theater, in 1979 Laine was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and in 1997 she was made a dame. Dankworth was knighted in 2006.

Laine was nominated for five Grammy awards — including one for Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance for a recording of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and songs by Charles Ives with the Nash Ensemble and Anthony Hymas — and won one for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for Cleo at Carnegie – The 10th Anniversary Concert in 1986.

Under the auspices of Allied Arts, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth appeared in Orchestra Hall on eight occasions, as follows.

November 6, 1973
October 21, 1974
April 6, 1976
March 19, 1984
December 2, 1986
October 24, 1987
March 19, 1988
November 2, 1996

Numerous tributes have appeared online, including the New York Times, the Guardian and AP News, among several others.  

This article also appears here.