[Uncommon Rhythm;
a
Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Irish Catholic Adoptee's
journey to leadership,
by Aaron P. Dworkin. Detroit: Aquarius Press, 2011. ISBN
978-0-9846212-7-9. LC: 2011937256. 260p. (paperback)]
AaronP. Dworkin (b. 1970) is featured at AfriClassical.com as a distinguished
Musician of African Descent:
Book
Review
Uncommon Rhythm;
a
Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Irish Catholic Adoptee's
journey to leadership,
by Aaron P. Dworkin.
Detroit: Aquarius Press, 2011. Available from the publisher at PO
Box 23096 Detroit 48223 (phone 877-979-3639). $27.45 includes
shipping.
Biographies
can be problematic, no matter if written by a member of the subject's
family or the subject: We can suspect something important is under
the rug, and we can doubt that things are so noble as being
portrayed. There have been exemplars within our area of interest in
recent times. We might also be given material about a figure of
marginal interest who, perhaps, made some environmental observations
of greater significance.
Need
there be anyone in the orchestral world, African American music, or
even now in government who does not know the name of Aaron P.
Dworkin? Ask any young Black or Latino string player. Ask Yo-Yo Ma.
Ask President Omaba. At 41, he has not yet hit mid-career, yet he
has been an increasingly major figure on the musical scene for more
than a decade.
Those
who have known him personally, seen him with Anderson Cooper on
television, or heard him speak at professional gatherings know this
is a cool, gentlemanly, philosophical, trustworthy, and sincere man,
a most handsome person with a very uncommon name for a Black person!
It
will certainly be known that he is the founder of the Sphinx
Organization, which has already begun to bring about incredible and
unexpected changes to the orchestral world -- an American counterpart
of Venezuela's el
sistema.
It may be remembered he received the MacArthur genius award in 2005.
Those up to date will know he is to be a member of the National
Council of the Arts.
This
book is an account of how he evolved, foster child of a Jewish family
(who exercised really tough love), excelled as worse than a typical
teenage prankster, dealt with virulent racism, fell so deeply in
love, struggled with poverty, found his birth parents, avoided
practicing his violin, and faced death in the family. All this may
make him paternal, perhaps indulgent, as the godfather of hundreds of
Sphinx aspirants.
It
took a while for the Sphinx idea to formulate, but when it did, it
began to soar with ardent support from international figures (Isaac
Stern at the start). Dworkin took flight. Supersonic.
As
an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, he must have been a
founding member of what the Black music students were to term "the
Michigan mafia," who have all broken the chains of tradition.
His discovery of the music of William Grant Still was an epiphany,
encouraged by his teacher, Stephen Shipps (who had encountered the
repertoire thirty years earlier when he performed for the national
Black music symposia I held). The discoveries went on, from
Saint-Georges to Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson.
The
drama unfolds without any self-aggrandizement, with nothing under the
carpet, while we, the rapt readers, know how all of these disparate
pieces will unite. It is difficult to imagine an individual or
library that will not place this book at the top of any acquisition
list.
Dominique-René de Lerma
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