William Banfield papers, 1977-2001
| Center for Black Music Research
Abstract
Administrative/Biographical History
Dr. William “Bill” Cedric Banfield is currently a professor and director of the Africana Studies/Music and Society initiative at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He is well-known for his original, boundary-crossing compositions and his writings on the black aesthetic and artistic theology. Originally from Detroit, he had a busy musical life in school, starting guitar lessons at the age of 9, and performing with professional bands from the age of 12. He graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1979, then spent several years in Boston, earning a BM degree in 1983 from the New England Conservatory of Music and a master’s of theological studies from Boston University in 1988, with a minor in composition and conducting. During his time in Boston, he studied with T.J. Anderson, William Thomas McKinley, George Russell, and Theodore Antoniou, and founded the Bill Banfield Quintet. He also established BMagic Operations, a small national record label specializing in local talent.
An educator for all ages, Banfield taught at numerous community centers and academic institutions, and offered private instruction in guitar and composition during his student days. He co-founded the Young Artists Development, Inc. music school in Boston (with fellow composer Stephen Newby) in 1985, a program that provided academic and technical training as well as performance opportunities for young, inner-city artists. Banfield served as its director until 1988. Upon earning a DMA from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor in 1992, he became a professor at Indiana University, and travelled as visiting artist and scholar to colleges throughout the United States, including to historically black colleges.
In 1993 he established the Undine Smith Moore Collection of Scores and Manuscripts of Black Composers at Indiana, both the permanent archives and the “Extensions of the Tradition” concert series featuring these works, which is still active. In 1997 Dr. Banfield held the endowed chair in the Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minneapolis. In 2002, Banfield served as a W.E.B. Dubois fellow at Harvard, and was invited by Toni Morrison to serve as visiting Atelier Artist 2003. In 2005, he returned to Boston to take up his current post.
As a composer, author and jazz guitarist, public radio show host, producer of contemporary pop music, and educator, Banfield incorporates multiple aesthetic influences into his work, expressing his art through a variety of symphonic, concert and jazz idioms while maintaining a unique personal voice. Banfield has received numerous awards and grants for his compositions from private and government funders, including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Jerome Foundation and the Lila Wallace Foundation. Symphony orchestras in a number of cities in the United States have commissioned and performed his work including Detroit, Atlanta, San Diego and Akron, and the National in Washington, D.C.
In addition to his work as an educator, Dr. Banfield maintains an equally active performing career in jazz and fusion, appearing with his own trio and leading the B-Magic Orchestra. Recordings of his music in both jazz and concert genres appear on the TelArc, Atlantic, Cedille and Innova labels, among others. Many of his jazz and popular compositions have also been performed by other artists including Bobby McFerrin, Regina Carter, Don Byron, Rachel Z, Billy Childs and Nnenna Freelon.
Banfield has served as host for several public radio shows including his own series entitled “Essays Of Note.” Scarecrow Press (Lanham, Maryland) has published several of Banfield’s recent books, including Landscapes in Color: Conversations with Black American Composers (2003), Black Notes: Essays of A Musician Writing In A Post Album Age (2006) and Black Notes and Cultural Codes: The Makings Of A Black Philosophy of Music (2009).
Currently Banfield serves as chair of Black Music Culture for the Association of American Culture and the Popular Culture Association of America conferences, and as executive director of Videmus/Visionary records. He recently joined Scarecrow Press as its contributing editor of Cultural Studies and Jazz Publications.
Administrative Information
The bulk of the collection consists of compositions, including songs and jazz works, but is especially strong in concert music. There are both original manuscripts and photocopies of published and unpublished scores, including sacred vocal music and orchestral works. Several scores contain annotations by the composer and others. Banfield’s first six symphonies are represented, and there are four copies of Momma Why? (a little opera), one with performance notes. Unpublished manuscripts include the unfinished 2nd movement for Zola: Chamber Suite, written in 1986, three versions (two are manuscripts) of 96/66 concerto for guitar and orchestra, dated 1981, 1983 and 1986 (rescored), and the first movement of an early string piece, Quartet No. 1 in Eb Major, dated 1979. Most of the compositions in the collection date from 1981 to 1991, with a smaller number of works dated from 1992 to 2005.
Banfield’s personal papers include correspondence from 1977 to 1993, including one folder of composer correspondents. There are flyers and programs documenting his career from the late 1970s to early 1990s, and photographs of his performances and artistic activities, as well as events related to BMagic and YADI. There is also some additional material related to the YADI training program and the performances of the students, and documenting the early days of BMagic Operations.
Unpublished writings, primarily student papers, comprise the rest of Box 1, and include his master’s thesis and a book draft entitled “Essays of Note, An Epistle: Reflections on Black American Music Culture.” A student paper in the collection is an analysis of the work of T.J. Anderson, one of his composition teachers in Boston. Three cassettes and two commercial CDs are the extent of the sound recordings held, though commercial recordings of many of Banfield’s compositions are widely available. There is also a commercial DVD, "Striking Balance: Bill Banfield, Composer" from 2005.