Since its establishment in 1977, the William Warfield Scholarship Fund, Inc. (WWSF) has provided financial aid to more than 60 African American classical singers, including students from the Eastman School of Music and high school-aged performers. The WWSF Board of Directors proudly invites you to attend its 48th Annual Benefit Concert on Sunday, January 19, 2025, at 4:00 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall. This year’s event, themed “Let Freedom Sing,” will feature the 2024-2025 William Warfield Scholarship Fund recipient, current Eastman student Holden Turner ’25E, baritone, alongside a stellar lineup of acclaimed performers, including Kenneth Overton, Grammy Award-winning baritone; Thomas Warfield, WWSF President Emeritus, Artist and Pianist; Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church Men’s Chorus; and Deanna Dewberry, Award-winning anchor and investigative reporter for News10 NBC/WHEC-TV, as Concert Emcee.
This year’s concert will also feature the presentation of the 2025 William Warfield Legacy Award to Grammy Award-winning soprano Leona Mitchell for her leadership, achievements and distinguished contributions to the development of young African American artists aspiring to careers in classical vocal performance. As part of the celebration, Mitchell will participate in a special pre-concert chat with Julia Figueras, former Music Director and mid-day host for WXXI Classical.
“Let Freedom Sing” honors the intertwining legacies of freedom and song, particularly during the civil rights movement. “This concert is more than a celebration of music,” says WWSF President Lolita Forsett. “It is a profound reminder of how music has been a voice for justice, hope, and liberation throughout history. On this MLK weekend, we pay tribute to two extraordinary leaders, William Warfield and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose commitment to freedom and equity continues to inspire. Through their lives and legacies, we see how art and activism can unite us and propel us toward a brighter future.”
“The legacy of William Warfield is deeply inspiring to me as a young artist. It’s a privilege to honor his memory while standing on the foundation he helped build,” says Holden Turner, this year’s WWSF recipient. “To sing at this concert, especially under the theme of ‘Let Freedom Sing,’ is to celebrate the transformative power of music in advancing equality and justice.”
By choosing to attend this special benefit concert, you will also have access to a pre-concert chat with Leona Mitchell and a meet & greet reception immediately following the performance in Miller Center’s Sproull Atrium. Tickets are $45 in advance, $50 after December 31, 2024 (fees not included), and $10 for students with URID. They may be purchased online, in person at the Eastman Theatre Box Office (located at 433 East Main Street; hours: M-F 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.) or by calling 585-274-3000.
Please consider supporting the WWSF by donating here: williamwarfield.org/contribute
For more information, visit the William Warfield Scholarship Fund.
Media only:
Eastman School of Music | Lauren Sageer, Assistant Director of Public Relations and Digital Content,
(585) 451-8492, lsageer@esm.rochester.edu
William Warfield Scholarship Fund | Lolita Forsett, President of the Board,
(585) 202-3686, info@williamwarfield.com
William Warfield Scholarship Fund | Jamila Evans Rogers, Marketing Chair,
(585) 485-3388, jhrogers25@gmail.com
###
Artists participating in the Scholarship Fund Concert include:
Holden Turner ’25E, a baritone from Rochester, NY, is currently a senior at the Eastman School of Music, studying under Professor Nicole Cabell. Turner was most recently seen as a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival during the Summer of 2024. He has been seen in numerous productions with the Eastman Opera Theatre and has also been seen as a featured soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. He’s been honored to perform as a Baritone Soloist for the Finger Lakes Opera on many occasions, The Rochester Oratorio Society, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Eastman Philharmonia and Eastman-Rochester Chorus, SUNY Geneseo Symphony Orchestra and Festival Singers, Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra, and many more in and out of the community of Rochester. Turner has worked with a vast number of artists, ranging from Jon Batiste to Dawn Upshaw and Andris Nelsons. He is the current recipient of both the Rochester Links Organization’s “Young, Gifted & Black” Scholarship and the William Warfield Scholarship at Eastman.
Kenneth Overton is lauded for blending his opulent baritone with magnetic, varied portrayals that seemingly “emanate from deep within body and soul.” Kenneth Overton’s symphonious baritone voice has sent him around the globe, making him one of the most sought-after opera singers of his generation. In 2020, Kenneth became a Grammy Award-winner for Best Choral Performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by JoAnn Falletta.
Last season, Overton featured largely at the Welsh National Opera, leading their production of Migrations and performing the role of Duncan in The Shoemaker, both being world premieres. Overton went on to sing Porgy in Porgy and Bess, a co-production by Opera Carolina and North Carolina Opera. Concert engagements included soloist appearances with The Washington Chorus at The Kennedy Center in Duruflé’s Requiem, and Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes from the Life of a Martyr as the narrator; additionally, Overton performed a concert staging of Porgy and Bess with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, Strauss’ Daphne with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Bach’s St. John Passion with The Dessoff Choirs, Handel’s Messiah at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, and “A Knee on the Neck” and “Dona Nobis Pacem” with the New York Choral Society at Lincoln Center. Overton made his Metropolitan Opera Debut in the Grammy Award-winning production of Porgy and Bess.
Thomas Warfield, an international performing artist, has lived in six countries. He is founder/artistic director of PeaceArt, a 32-year-old global peace organization. Thomas Warfield has been Director of Dance at the Rochester Institute of Technology for 25 years. He has served on many boards: World Dance Alliance (Hong Kong), ARTWalk, Rochester Arts Council, Greentopia, Rochester City Ballet, Gateways Music Festival, Rochester Fringe Festival, NY Dance Festival, and was a former president of the William Warfield Scholarship Fund.
Leona Mitchell is an American operatic Grammy Award-wining soprano who sang for 18 seasons as the leading spinto at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Debuting as Micaela in George Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen with the San Francisco Opera, subsequently made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York City on December 15, 1975, in the same role. She sang the role of Bess in the first complete recording of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess from which she received a Grammy for “Best Opera Recording.”
Mitchell has contributed to several recordings, had many television appearances, collaborated with many of the greatest conductors, sang at most of the world’s best-known opera houses and has performed for five U.S. Presidents, along with many prestigious dignitaries.
She received her BA from Oklahoma City University and the University of Oklahoma and continued her graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She also received an honorary doctorate from Oklahoma City University. In her hometown of Enid, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and Governor Brad Henry of Oklahoma made her Oklahoma’s State Cultural Ambassador. She married Elmer Bush III, by whom she had one son, Elmer Bush IV.
The Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church Music Ministry has ministered through song since the church’s inception in 1939. The church’s history includes the renowned singer and actor William C. Warfield, whose father Rev. Robert E. Warfield, was called to pastor the church from 1947 until his death in 1966. Mt. Vernon’s Male Chorus began under the leadership of Thaddeus Warfield, the youngest brother of William Warfield, who served as Minister of Music until his retirement in 1993.
Deanna Dewberry is a multi-award-winning anchor and investigative reporter with more than two decades of experience in television news. Deanna is a dedicated advocate for breast cancer research and her advocacy has earned her 12 regional Emmy Awards, which included being named the region’s top consumer reporter.
###
About the William Warfield Scholarship Fund:
Formed in March 1977 (incorporated in 1979) under the leadership of Anastasia L. “Tessa” Martin to honor the life and legacy of William Warfield, we are a 16-member board, 100% volunteer operated with no paid personnel.
The William Warfield Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing financial support and encouragement for African American students to attain success in the field of classical vocal music; and fostering wider recognition of the life and legacy of William Warfield.
We provide an annual scholarship for African American vocal students at the Eastman School of Music, and an annual scholarship concert and spring luncheon that feature our Eastman scholarship recipient. Now in its sixth year, the “William Warfield Classical Vocal Competition for African American High School Students” provides financial support and encouragement to African American students in schools across the country.
About William Warfield:
William Warfield, born January 22, 1920, grew up in Rochester, NY. He graduated from Rochester city schools and earned a New York state cosmetology license. During his senior high school year, he won the National Music Educators League Competition and a full scholarship to any American music school of his choice. William chose the Eastman School of Music, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1942 and 1946.
Warfield was known worldwide for his work as a soloist, recitalist, actor, narrator and activist. He was acclaimed throughout the world as one of the great vocal artists of our time, was a star in every field open to a singer’s art and was one of the world’s leading experts on Negro Spirituals and German Lieder. Best known for his portrayals of Porgy in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and of Joe, the dock hand, in the movie Showboat, he won a Grammy in 1984 for his narration of Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia. In 1991, he published his uncommonly personal memoir, My Music & My Life.
###
About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training.
More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprised of more than 130 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, Grammy winners, Emmy winners, Guggenheim fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists, and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community. Additionally, more than 1,700 members of the Rochester community, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.
About the University of Rochester:
The University of Rochester is one of the nation’s leading private research universities, one of only 62-member institutions in the Association of American Universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the Memorial Art Gallery.