Ray Calabrese's Buckeye Blog on Aaron Dworkin: 'Stubborness & Persistence is All it Takes'

[Aaron P. Dworkin]

Ray Calabrese's Buckeye Blog

“Stubborness & Persistence is All it Takes

Sep 28 2010

All It Takes Is One Stubborn Person

Difference makers refuse to take no for an answer. Difference makers intuitively sense the pressure points, the place where their efforts will make a difference. Once they recognize the pressure points, they move without counting the cost. They are all in, holding nothing back.

“Once such difference maker is Aaron Dworkin. Aaron Dworkin is an African American who was adopted and raised by Jewish parents. At five, he began playing the violin. He studied at the University of Michigan and met the African-American composer William Grant. William Grant changed Aaron’s life. Aaron said, 'No one ever told me this music existed. It would enrich so many people in the minority community. I thought, Why aren’t they hearing it, too? You can’t complain about something, unless you’re doing something about it.'

“He did something about it. He founded the Sphinx Organization in Detroit to introduce young African American and Latino children into classical music. All Aaron started with was an idea and passion to make a difference. Because of his persistence and stubbornness to make a difference, Sphinx has helped nearly 45,000 students in 100 schools and awarded $800,000 in scholarships.”

AfriClassical.com posted a comment on the above article on September 28, 2010:

“Aaron P. Dworkin is indeed a remarkable person with uncommon drive. For approximately 9 years he has been featured as a Musician of African Descent at www.AfriClassical.com, which devotes a page to him. The companion blog, AfriClassical.blogspot.com, posts frequent news of Aaron and the Sphinx Organization he founded. I would like to suggest that it is improbable that he met William Grant Still. The composer was quite ill in his final few years, and when he died in Los Angeles in 1978, Aaron Dworkin was an 8-year-old violin student living in New York City. It is my understanding that Aaron Dworkin learned of the music of William Grant Still in the 1990s, when he studied Violin Performance at the University of Michigan. This correction does not in any way diminish the importance of Aaron P. Dworkin as a model of persistence.”

[William Grant Still (1895-1978) and Aaron P. Dworkin (b. 1970) are profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a complete Works List for William Grant Still, compiled by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University Conservatory in Appleton, Wisconsin]