A dynamic and innovative composer, clinician and educator, Bill Warfield has energized audiences, performers and writers  for more than two decades.  After obtaining an M.M. in Jazz Commercial Trumpet from the Manhattan School of Music, Bill received the William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Jazz/Commercial Music, The Carmine Caruso Award for Outstanding Musicality and Trumpet performance and the Maynard Ferguson Scholarship.  He is also an alumni of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, directed by Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam.

In 2002, Bill recorded Hard Bop with his quintet, a group comprised of some of the finest musicians in New York. The same year, he collaborated with arranger Russ Anixter on a recording of the Fusion Ensemble playing big band charts based on the music of Led Zeppelin. The band currently performs at the Triad in New York City the first Monday of every month. 

In the fall of 2000, Bill Warfield composed and conducted a concert with the The Yellow Jackets entitled “Beneath the Stacks, Second Line of the Industrial Revolution”, which was performed at Lehigh University and featured the Lehigh Valley Jazz Repertory Orchestra. 

In 1999 Bill collaborated with David Leibman on “Le Jazz Hot”, a tribute to the composers of Les Six, which was performed in Paris at the LaVillette Jazz Festival, July 2000.

Among his other accomplishments is a commission by the government of Spain to arrange and produce Hollywood Jazz, a musical review for the 1992 Olympic year, and a commission by the Berlin Radio Orchestra to write two works for big band. 

Warfield has performed with many well known jazz and commercial artists including Ornette Coleman, The American Jazz Orchestra directed by John Lewis, Mel Lewis, Paul Anka, Mel Torme, Randy Brecker, David Sanborn, Sonny Stitt, Sheila Jordan and Lester Bowie, among others.  He was an NBC staff musician for the 1995 VIDA awards and has been an orchestrator for Eddie Palmieri and Lester Bowie.  Early in his career, Warfield was a performer and contributing writer for the Bill Kirchner Nonet on Seabreeze Records.  Presently, he is on the advisory board of the Baltimore Jazz Orchestra, where he plays lead trumpet.  He was the director of the jazz ensemble at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music at the City University of New York, Director of Jazz Studies at the Dalton School in New York, and Assistant Professor of Jazz Trumpet at the University of North Florida. He has been commissioned by the US Air Force Airmen of Note, and has appeared with the United States Navy Commodores as a clinician.

In 1996 and 1997, The Bill Warfield Big Band was featured at Birdland in New York City as part of the Apple Band Cavalcade.  The Band’s first release, New York City Jazz (Interplay) received critical acclaim from Leonard Feather, Chuck Berg, Syd Levin, John Wilson, and Tom Conrad in CD Review magazine. The band’s second album, The City Never Sleeps (Seabreeze) was hailed by Kim Richmond in Jazz Player magazine. 

In 1995, Warfield co-produced a recording with guitarist Dave Stryker entitled Nomad (Steeplechase).  The Bill Warfield Big Band was featured at the International Association of Jazz Educators conference in 1994 and 1998, and at the New York City Brass Conference 1991, 95, 97, 98, and 99.

In addition to his professional career as an international performer, recording artist, band leader and producer, Bill Warfield is currently Assistant Professor in the Lehigh University music department. He is the recipient of the first Frank Hook Assistant Professorship Award (2000), and the Franz/Class of 1968 Award for outstanding professional achievements (2000). In 1997 he founded The Lehigh Valley Jazz Repertory Orchestra, a non-profit organization dedicated to the recreation of classic jazz performances as well as the creation of new works for jazz orchestra.

Bill Warfield is active in the International Association of Schools of Jazz and the International Association of Jazz Educators. He has been included in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (Ira Gitler and Leonard Feather.)

Bill Warfield has been selected for the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour roster of artists.  Funding from PennPAT may be available for presenters throughout themid-Atlantic region.  (Washington DC., DE, MD, NJ, NY, OH, PA, VA, WV, and the US Virgin Islands