When WILL-FM's Roger Cooper first heard William Warfield sing, Cooper was so impressed that he made a silent wish "sort of like a little prayer" that he could study with the renowned baritone. 

He got his wish years later after Warfield came to teach voice at the University of Illinois, where Cooper was already a graduate student.

The close relationship that developed between Cooper and Warfield planted the seeds for Classically Black, a series Cooper has produced about classically trained African-American musicians. "I loved to talk to him about the early days and about the musicians he knew," says Cooper. "I thought it would be great if everyone could hear his stories."

The first Classically Black program aired on WILL-FM in 1989, with Warfield talking about several African American musicians. 

Other programs have featured Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson, William Grant Still, Paul Robeson, Leontyne Price, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Andre Watts. They’ve been distributed to public radio stations around the country, with more than 200 carrying the most recent programs.

Cooper says he sees the programs as a kind of long-term outreach project. "Hopefully, we'll get more black people interested in classical music," he says. Often, people aren't aware of the contributions of African American musicians. "I have degrees in music and I didn't hear about them. You don't learn about black composers in music history classes," says Cooper, who has completed coursework for a doctorate in voice performance and literature at the U of I. In the past, little radio programming was available about classical music of black composers and musicians, says Cooper. "There was a need for it that wasn't being met. More is available now, and maybe we've had something to do with that."

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