University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus). School of Music

Abstract 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...