Lyn McLain, founder of the DC Youth Orchestra Program. Photo courtesy of DC Youth Orchestra Program.
In Friday’s (11/10) Washington Post, Emily Langer writes, “Lyn McLain, who brought classical music into the lives of tens of thousands of young people as founder of the D.C. Youth Orchestra Program, an initiative that has risen over six decades to international renown and was credited with diversifying the ranks of symphony orchestras across the United States, died Oct. 25 at his home in Washington. He was 95. The cause was end-stage renal disease, said his wife, Sally McLain. Trained as a clarinetist, Mr. McLain began his career as a union musician … He settled in Washington, where he was hired in 1956 as a music teacher at Calvin Coolidge High School. Four years later, on the request of the D.C. public schools system, he founded what became the D.C. Youth Orchestra Program (DCYOP). From an initial cohort of 60 members … DCYOP has grown over 63 years to enroll a total of more than 50,000 students … many of them minorities, and many of whom might not otherwise have had the opportunity to learn to play an instrument…. Mr. McLain was credited with helping, slowly, to change the largely white world of classical music…. DCYOP alumni include John McLaughlin Williams and the late Michael Morgan, both conductors; Daniel Foster, principal violist with the National Symphony Orchestra; Timothy Butler, a cellist with the NSO; the saxophonist Marshall Keys; and trumpet player and composer Chris Royal [as well as] D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, who played the flute.”
