Herman Whitfield III smiles as he sits at the piano, his fingers bouncing nimbly on the keys.
Around him, five people twirl and jump to Whitfield’s energetic tune in an empty white room. “I think music is one of the most direct forms of communication we have,” says Whitfield in the 2009 video of the Indianapolis Council on the Arts.
The music was different from what is normally heard from Whitfield, who often composed for orchestras. But nonetheless, he displayed what those who knew the man frequently called his musical “genius” and his talent.
“He was phenomenally talented,” said Antonio Pompa-Baldi, an Italian pianist who taught Whitfield’s piano performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music in the mid-2000s. “Every fiber of his being had a natural inclination toward music”.
More about what happened:A man who was attacked during a mental health crisis has died in custody. Advocates say that raises questions.
Whitfield, 39, died Monday at his parents’ home in northeast Indianapolis following an apparent mental health crisis in which he was shot twice by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police. His death has renewed calls from advocates in the Indianapolis community for a different approach to how the city handles calls for help related to mental health situations.
A native of Indianapolis, Whitfield attended Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School before heading to Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio. There, he completed the five-year dual degree program with three majors: He earned a Bachelor of Music with a double major in both Composition and Piano Performance, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, the school told IndyStar.
After graduating from Oberlin in 2006, Whitfield enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he received his Master of Music in piano performance in May 2008.
It was there that he met Pompa-Baldi.
“Everyone who knew Herman knew him as the gentlest of giants,” Pompa-Baldi said, adding that the news of Whitfield’s death came as a shock.
Whitfield was a large man, his former teacher explained, with large, thick fingers. “But he was able to get the most beautiful and smooth sounds out of the piano,” Pompa-Baldi said. “The most delicate and well-crafted sounds you can imagine.”
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“He had a gentle soul. He was soft-spoken,” Pompa-Baldi added. “When you looked at it, she was very big. But you could immediately get the feeling that she would never hurt a fly.”
One of Whitfield’s favorite composers was the Frenchman Gabriel Fauré, and Whitfield was drawn to composing for orchestras, a complex task considering that, in some cases, he was writing for instruments with which he was not very familiar.
“I just intuitively knew how to do it,” Pompa-Baldi said. “And the results were quite extraordinary.”
The pair lost touch for a few years before reconnecting in May 2020. Whitfield reached out to his former professor to inform him that he was in Miami, Florida, teaching. He had just come out of a creative block and started composing again, this time specifically for piano.
Like some in the Indianapolis community, Pompa-Baldi was concerned to learn of the circumstances surrounding Whitfield’s death.
“I don’t want to talk about politics,” he said, “but I’m very disappointed that those things shouldn’t happen.”
Community response to death
While Indianapolis has updated its response to mental health issues in recent years, community members told IndyStar those measures haven’t been enough to lessen concerns.
Since 2017, for example, IMPD has used specialized Mobile Crisis Assistant Teams, or MCATs, which consist of a trained crisis intervention officer and a doctor, to respond to certain situations.
But those teams wouldn’t have been able to help in Whitfield’s situation: they only operate on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett pledged in March to create a physician-led mobile crisis response team to respond to mental health-related issues in the community. The mayor’s office said Tuesday that it is “still identifying the source and size of that funding” for the pilot program.
The advocacy group behind the lawsuit, Faith In Indiana, told IndyStar that the mayor’s office in talks last week indicated the program could be ready by 2023.
Calls Renewed to Defund Indianapolis Police
Indy10 Black Lives Matter on Wednesday renewed its calls to defund the police and listed other cases of Indianapolis residents who died during mental health crises involving police.
“The time for reform has passed”, the organization said in a statement. “A change must begin to engage in deep care for community members in crisis: ensuring they have adequate support for their mental health needs, that there are competent providers responding to people in crisis, and that the means to meet and exceeding these needs will not be excused…”
Whitfield’s family has yet to comment publicly on Monday’s events. And a knock on the door of the house on Tuesday was answered by someone who said he “had nothing to say at this time.”
Still, hints of Whitfield’s musical talent appear both in the Youtube videos and news clippings online.
One article on Whitfield notes that the man’s compositions have been performed by both the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He quotes one of his professors at Oberlin, Peter Takács, as saying that he hopes Whitfield “will become a brilliant and original performer”.
“Herman is a natural musician, with an instinctive sense of melodic and harmonic line,” said Takács. “He creates wonderful colors on the piano with an unusually delicate touch for someone who easily reaches a twelfth (from C to G an octave and a fifth above).”
An old article in The Oberlin Reviewthe campus newspaper, praises the man for how he “fully expressed the gloomy mood” of One Piece.
“His music was great,” Pompa-Baldi told IndyStar on Wednesday. “He had a lot of potential.”
Contact Lawrence Andrea at 317-775-4313 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @lawrencegandrea.
