Oral history interview with William Warfield.
| Title | Oral history interview with William Warfield. |
|---|---|
| Date | 2003-05-20 1999-08-04 - 1999-08-04 |
| Creator | Warfield, William. |
| Contributor | Jones, Arthur C. |
| Description | Software: Sound Forge v.6.0 digital audio editor; Goldwave v.4.25/s.02 (for noise reduction); LAME v.3.89 using voice preset. Equipment: Kenwood KX-W4050 tape deck; Santa Cruz Turtle Beach (Voyetra) sound card; Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-308B CD burner. audio/wav Size of master file: 231219348 bytes. Biography: Born in Arkansas, William Warfield (1920-2002) moved to Rochester, N.Y., with his family. He pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and established himself as a vocal artist with a recital debut in New York's Town Hall in 1950. In addition to Warfield's musical abilities as a baritone, he was also known for his acting capabilities, with one of his most memorable roles as the title role in George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. He received numerous honors and awards including an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Arkansas, an honorary Doctorate from Lafayette University (Easton, PA) for his "Contributions in the Arts", and a "Doctor of Human Letters" from Augustana College in Illinois. He devoted his time to the National Association of Negro Musicians and the Schiller Institute where he conducted voice-training master classes. In 1984 he won a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word" category for his narration of Aaron Copeland's "A Lincoln Portrait." He served on the faculty of the University of Illinois, and was a professor of voice at Northwestern University prior to his death. Title supplied by cataloger. Interviewer: Arthur Jones. Conducted Aug. 4, 1999, in Houston, TX at the National Association of Negro Musicians Convention. Accompanied by digital transcript. William Warfield recounts his early experiences of studying music with well-known artists such as Robert Nathaniel Dett and Paul Robeson, and some of his early performance experiences. He discusses his approach to performing any musical work, including spirituals and classical works, in which he visualizes what the music is saying before and while he performs it. He describes the spiritual as a folk song that is part of the cultural inheritance of all Americans, and believes that the concretized spirituals, or spirituals as art songs, are still a valid expression of the original slave experience. He also describes some of his teaching experiences at Northwestern University and believes that an important part of his calling as an artist was to teach and awaken the artistry of his students. |
| Subject | University Of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus). School of Music -- Faculty. Baritones (Singers) -- United States. Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) -- Faculty. Oral histories. African Americans -- Religion. African Americans -- Music -- History and criticism. Sacred music -- History and criticism. Warfield, William. Spirituals (Songs) -- History and criticism. |
| Format | 44 min. audio/mp3 Transcript file: text/html |
| Type | text sound |
| Source | Audio cassette recording of oral history interview with William Warfield. |
| Publisher | University of Denver, Penrose Library. University of Denver |
| Rights | http://www.penlib.du.edu/about/collections/specialcollections/copyri.cfm |
| Identifier | http://library.du.edu/about/collections/digitallibrary/transcript.cfm?MediaObjectID=279 http://library.du.edu/about/collections/digitallibrary/playershell.cfm?MediaObjectID=279 |
| Collection | |
| Citation | Warfield, William., "Oral history interview with William Warfield.," in Heritage West, Item #56090, http://heritagewest.coalliance.org/items/show/56090 (accessed May 23, 2013). |