Welcome to Julius Hemphill : Composer, a website created to support researchers and artists who want to make new recordings, performances, editions, and interpretations of Hemphill’s music. The Julius Hemphill Papers is an archival collection at New York University Special Collections & Archives relating to the work of composer and saxophonist Julius Hemphill (1938–1995). The collection has three main components:
- Hemphill’s notated compositional corpus, comprising about 250 works, represented through autograph scores, sketches, compositional notebooks, and parts in manuscript;
- About 180 archival audio and visual documents, which include rehearsals, concerts, recording sessions, interviews, and practice sessions, and which also document Hemphill’s multimedia and collaborative theatrical works;
- Personal papers and related documents.
This website offers unique resources for research, complementing and expanding upon the collection’s online inventory (finding aid). At the core of the website is an Annotated Composition List, which encompasses Hemphill’s entire compositional corpus as it is known to date. The list includes not only notated works represented in the archive, but also works found on archival or commercial recordings, including those for which there is no known score. Hemphill’s albums (commercially released LP’s and CD’s) can also be understood as unified works, and each album is linked to the Annotated Composition List via its component works.
Complementing the composition list is an annotated list of Archival Audiovisual Material. This list documents the individual works found on the archival recordings held in the Hemphill Papers. Most of these recordings have been digitized and are available to researchers for listening and viewing.
The Annotated Composition List and the list of Archival Audiovisual Material are drawn from more substantial documents created by composer/saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, a longtime collaborator of Hemphill’s who led the Julius Hemphill Sextet. Ehrlich’s documents, which are based on his original research with these materials, include detailed annotations and personal observations about each composition and recording included in the Hemphill collection, as well as detailed notes about Hemphill’s personal papers. We encourage researchers to consult Ehrlich’s documents, which are rich resources and are included in Ehrlich’s own archival collection at NYU.
Hyperlinks allow you to draw connections for each composition as it is represented in different iterations throughout the website: in the composition list, the list of archival audiovisual material, and an annotated gallery of commercial recordings, as well as on several pages that are thematically organized using tags.
Additional resources for researchers include a Timeline of Hemphill’s career and a Bibliography of published writings about Hemphill, both prepared by Brian Fairley. The Timeline includes dates of known recording sessions, noteworthy performances, and commissions.
NYU Special Collections & Archives are open by appointment to all visitors conducting archival research, regardless of university affiliation. To learn more about how to view materials or consult audio/video from the Julius Hemphill Papers at NYU, visit the Special Collections access page. Please send any questions to scra@nyu.edu.
Credits (2018–2020)
Tamar Barzel, Content Editor; Project Manager. Website components: Annotated Composition List (contributor); Archival Audiovisual Material (developer); Introductory texts.
Marty Ehrlich, Chief Researcher; Content Developer. Website components: Annotated Composition List (content); Archival Audiovisual Material (content).
Brian Fairley, Content Editor; Research Assistant; Web Designer. Website components: Album Gallery; Annotated Composition List (developer); Bibliography & Timeline.
Nicholas Martin, Consultant, NYU Special Collections
Kent Underwood, Project Supervisor