Publishing the fourth and final issue of "Views on Black American Music" is the last remaining task for the staff of the Fine Arts Center Department of Multicultural Program's annual Black Musicians Festival. According to editor Mark Baszak, "Views is intended to be a written and visual documentation of Black Musicians Festival events held on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts each spring from 1989 through 1999. Publication is the culmination of a ten-year research project that we are beginning to edit this fall." For 28 years, the University of Massachusetts presented a series of musical and related activities to celebrate Black American music and its complementary arts. The Black Musicians Festival had two main goals:

1. Present Black American music in a scholarly and analytical manner, both in and out of a performance context, and

2. Program events that encouraged diverse audiences to attend proceedings that carefully blended entertainment with education.

Each year, the Festival recognized the contributions Black American music/ musicians made to American and world culture, as well as to contemporary thought.

The Festival was first established as a conference in 1971 by the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies. In 1983, the staff of New WORLD Theater administered a successful series of weeklong conferences through 1990. In 1991, Professor Horace Clarence Boyer, associate director of the Fine Arts Center, assumed artistic leadership of the Black Musicians Conference, which changed its last name to "Festival" in 1998 to reflect the celebratory nature of events held over a three-day period. The Festival was eventually phased out by the Fine Arts Center shortly after the 1999 Festival concluded, and the subsequent retirements of Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer and Frederick Tillis from the University.

Throughout its evolution, the Festival accomplished its mission through a wide spectrum of artistic disciplines: including music, dance, theater, literature, and the visual arts -- including film and video presentations. The cornerstone of the Festival has always been a panel discussion, distinguished achievement award ceremony and mini-concert based on that year's theme.

From 1989 to 1999, the Black Musicians Festival offered a diverse range of subject matter and presentations by world-renowned artists, writers and historians as panelists, award recipients, and performers.

"Views" will likely be of historical significance to the study of Black American Music, as it represents the diversity of discussions, issues, concerns and programming illuminated by ten years of Black Musicians Festivals at the University of Massachusetts. Upon publication, the Special Collections and Archives Department of the University of Massachusetts Library will maintain all original research documents, photographs, and audiotapes. Funding for "Views" was provided by the Fine Arts Center and the UMass Arts Council.

Festival themes

1989 Black Music and Social Change

1990 The Time Has Come: Gospel Music

1991 Celebrating The Blues

1992 New Trends in Vocal Jazz

1993 Great Women of Jazz

1994 World Music & Jazz

1995 Blues-Based Jazz: The Legacy of William "Count" Basie

1996 The Revolution Returns: The Next Generation in Jazz

1997 Gospel in the 1990's: The Reason Why We Sing

1998 A Great Day in Harlem: A Tribute to Dr. Frederick C. Tillis

1999 The Blues Lives On