William Warfield
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William Caesar Warfield (22 January 1920 - 26 August 2002), concert baritone singer, was born in West Helena, Arkansas. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town Hall on March 19, 1950. He was quickly invited by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to tour that continent for 35 concerts. In 1952, Warfield performed in Porgy and Bess during a tour of Europe sponsored by the U.S. State Department (he made six separate tours for the US Department of State, more than any other American solo artist.) In this production he played opposite the opera star Leontyne Price, whom he soon married, but the demands of two separate careers left them little time together. They divorced in 1972, but were featured together in a 1963 studio recording of excerpts from Porgy and Bess.
Warfield was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. In 1975 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He later became Chairman of the Voice Department.
Warfield was also accomplished in acting and poetry recitation. He played the character De Lawd in a celebrated Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of The Green Pastures, a role he played twice (these were the days of live TV, before video tape). He appeared in two Hollywood films, including a celebrated performance as Joe in MGM's 1951 Technicolor remake of "Show Boat." His other film was an overlooked item called "Old Explorers", starring James Whitmore and José Ferrer. In a nod to "Show Boat", Warfield played a cameo role as a tugboat captain. Footage of Warfield in "Show Boat" has been seen in several TV shows and/or films, notably That's Entertainment. Warfield played his Show Boat role in two other productions of the musical - the 1966 Lincoln Center production, and a 1972 production in Vienna. And he was heard singing Ol' Man River in three different recordings of the show - the 1951 motion picture soundtrack album, a 1962 studio recording featuring Barbara Cook and John Raitt, and the recording made from the Lincoln Center production.
In the early 1960's, he appeared as a recital soloist on an episode of the Young People's Concerts, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In March 1984 he was the winner of a Grammy in the "Spoken Word" category for his outstanding narration of Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra. And in the 1990's, he narrated a special jazz arrangement of music from "Show Boat", on the NPR program Riverwalk.
Warfield was active in many organizations, and served on the boards of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) and the Schiller Institute. After joining the Schiller Institute in 1996, he began to collaborate with acclaimed vocal coach Sylvia Olden Lee in a project to save the performance tradition of the Negro Spiritual[1]. During the final years of his life, from 1999 to 2002, he performed regularly at Schiller Institute biannual conferences, often with Olden Lee as his accompanist, and the two of them travelled the country conducting singing workshops for members of the LaRouche Youth Movement.[2]
