Bill Banfield via Matrix

Bill Banfield

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Name: Bill Banfield
City/Place: Boston, Massachusetts
Country: United States
Hometown: Detroit, Michigan

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What's Up? Dr. Cornel West called him," one of the last grand Renaissance men in our time..a towering artist, exemplary educator, rigorous scholar, courageous freedom fighter",

Henry Louis Gates wrote “...Bill Banfield is one of the most original voices on the scene today.. he tunes us in to the conversation happening worldwide between the notes of contemporary musical culture."

Life & Work

Bio: Having served three times as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American music (2010, 2016, 2020), Banfield is an award winning composer whose symphonies, operas, chamber works have been performed and recorded by major symphonies across the country. Few have a wider, performed professional composing output, that has had public concert performances, reviews, radio, recordings of some 12 symphonies, 7 opera, 9 concerti, chamber, jazz and popular forms. This alone making Banfield one of the most performed, recorded composers of his generation. Banfield has been a national public radio show host having served as arts and culture correspondent for The Tavis Smiley Show. In 2010, he was hired by Quincy Jones to write a national music curriculum and book for schools learning about American popular music culture.

Banfield’s works have been commissioned, performed and recorded by orchestras including; the National, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, Akron, Detroit, New York Virtuoso, Grand Rapids, Akron, Richmond, Toledo, Savannah, Chicago Symphonia, Indianapolis, Sphinx, Sacramento, San Diego symphonies and the Havana Camerata of Cuba. In 2012, his symphony 10 was commissioned, premiered by the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center with Sweet Honey in the Rock, and his symphony 11 was performed, recorded in Switzerland with the Evoca/ECJ symphony and chorus.

His works as a composer and performing- recording jazz artist are carried on Atlantic, TelArc, CollinsClassics (London), Centaur, Albany/Visionary recordings and Innova records. His music has been performed and/or recorded by; George Duke, Patrice Rushen, Don Byron, Leon Bates, Christian Scott, Najee, Ron Carter, Delfeayo Marsalis, Greg Osby, Teri Lynn Carrington, Oliver Lake, Regina Carter, Rachel Z, Jon Faddis, Marcus Belgrave, Billy Childs, Nnenna Freelon, Alphonso Johnson, Ndugu Chancelor, and Nelson Rangel.

Dr. Bill Banfield has served as Professor of Africana Studies/Music and Society, founding director of the Center for Africana Studies/Liberal Arts and teaching in the dept. of composition and the graduate program Berklee College of Music, now retired (2005-2020). The college named him, Professor Emeritus founding director of Africana Studies/Center.

He served as the Endowed Chair Humanities, Fine Arts, professor of Music, director of American Cultural Studies/Jazz, Popular, World Music Studies, University of St. Thomas, MN (1997-2005). Banfield served as assistant professor, African American Studies/Music, Indiana University (1992-1997) where he developed the Undine Smith Moore Collection of Scores and Manuscripts of Black Composers.

In 2002, he was as a W.E.B. Dubois fellow at Harvard University and was appointed by Toni Morrison to serve as the visiting Atelier Professor, Princeton University, 2003. In 2005, he was visiting professor of Composition, University of Minnesota. In addition he has lectured and been in residence at; Duke, Fisk, Morehouse, Spellman, Carnegie Mellon, University of Virginia Tech, Augsberg, U of Texas, Michigan, Maryland, Atlanta U, Bowling Green State, St. Augustine, North Central State, Augusta Gustavia, U North Carolina, U Penn, Butler, Hunter, U of Richmond, U of Connecticut,Massachusetts (Amherst), U of Southern Alabama, Louisiana College, Louisiana State University at Alexandria, Bishop State College.

He has authored 6 books on music, arts and cultural criticism, history and biographies, covering everything from contemporary Black composers, to Ornette Coleman, Nikki Manaj and Kendrick Lamar; Landscapes in Color: Conversations With Black American Composers(2002), Black Notes: Essays Of A Musician Writing In A Post Album Age(2004), Cultural Codes: Makings Of A Black Music Philosophy( 2010, Scarecrow Press), Representing Black Music Culture( 2011), Ethnomusicologizing: Essays On Music In a The New Paradigms and Pat Patrick: American Musician and Cultural Visionary. ( Scarecrow Press)

Bill Banfield is founder/ director of JazzUrbane, a contemporary jazz art recording label, dedicated to producing creative new artists. The seminal project released in 2014, was produced by legendary icon George Duke, and included such leading artists as; Christian Scott, Terri Lyn Carrington, Najee, Greg Osby, and Grace Kelly. The label has already produced and released, 8 albums now heard internationally.

A native Detroiter, he received his Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, a Master of Theological Studies from Boston University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from the University of Michigan. His formal composition studies were under, T.J Anderson, George Russell, Theodore Antoniou, Bill Bolcolm, and Bill Albright.

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Dr. Bill Banfield Keynote
Dr. Bill Banfield – Composer, Author, Smithsonian Research Scholar, Owner/ CEO, JazzUrbane Recordings
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