Schiller Institute Board of Directors:

Helga Zepp LaRouche,
Amelia Boynton Robinson, ,
William Warfield, Fred Huenefield, T heo Mitchell

William Warfield
1920-2002

“Weep not; he's not dead;
he's resting in the bosom of Jesus”

Click to Link to Obituary Page

William Warfield

2001-- William Warfield, now an advanced voice teacher in Chicago, following a long career as an operatic baritone, is one of the world leading experts on Negro Spirituals and German Lieder. Past President of the National Association of Negro Musicians (1985-1990)

Dr. Warfield was born in the town of West Helena, Arkansas, to a family of sharecroppers. By the time he was 30 years old, he had won rave reviews in a sensational debut at New York's Town Hall. In the course of a career that has spanned more than half a century, his incomparable voice and charismatic personality have electrified the stages of six continents and earned him the title of “America's Musical Ambassador.”

It is a career that has witnessed both social ferment and show-business revolution. In his uncommonly personal memoir, {My Music & My Life,} Warfield has written a unique history of twentieth-century America. The panorama of his life and art embraces the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement, the big-studio era of Hollywood and the innovation of television drama, his marriage to Leontyne Price and his stage and screen roles in {Porgy and Bess} and {Show Boat.}

He is a consumate oratorio singer. He has appeared with great orchestras and great conductors, all of whom have applauded his musicianship. Television and film have recorded his triumphs as singer and actor. Critical opinion regards him as one of the great singer-actors of the 20th century,

Dr. Warfield joined the Board of the Schiller Institute in 1996 and has been engaged in the efforts of the Schiller Institute to revive a movement for a National Conservatory of Music, first pioneered at the beginning of the century by Antonin Dvorak. He has also worked extensively in voice-training master classes with the Schiller Institute. His skill in developing the student's ability to convey the meaning of a passage--be it drama, poetry or music--and its consequent correct phrasing, as being the key to achieving the “technical” solutions required for beautiful singing and recitation, can only be described as electrifying.

Interview with William Warfield in Fidelio Magazine

Concerts and Master Classes with William Warfield

For more about William Warfield, please Visit:

Hear William Warfield in Concert, Los Angeles, October, 2000

Click for More Tributes to William Warfield

More Tributes and Photo Memories

"Sing The Music!"

The Fight for Verdi's Tuning

William Warfield, Poet and Teacher

Dialogue on The Spiritual with Sylvia Olden Lee

"Live it, Baby!"

Warfield's 1998 Letter Calling for a Committee on Excellence in Education