Aaron Dworkin
(Kevin Kennedy)
Musician, educator and Sphinx Organization founder Aaron Dworkin will be
the featured speaker at the Penn State Forum Speaker Series at 11:30
a.m. on Sept. 15 at The Nittany Lion Inn.
By Heather Longley
August 26, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Almost everyone knows a few bars of at least
one piece of classical music. It’s in the background of countless
commercials, television shows and movies, and it has inspired popular
songwriters of all genres for more than a century. So why is classical
music often perceived as interesting to only the palest of racial
demographics?
According to a League of American Orchestras poll, of musicians in
154 orchestras during the 2007–08 season, 1.83 percent were black, 2.42
percent were Latino and 7.34 percent were Asian. Those numbers represent
a minuscule increase from the findings in the league’s previous poll
about the 1994–95 season.
Culture and history might have introduced largely white symphonies
and musical styles with few chances for minorities to join the party,
but Aaron Dworkin — Sphinx Organization founder, musician, spoken-word
artist, author, social activist and entrepreneur — said it’s that false
sense of ownership that’s threatening the livelihood of classical music
today. Dworkin will address his concerns as a speaker in the Penn State Forum Speaker Series at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at The Nittany Lion Inn, and during a Penn State residency that features Catalyst Quartet, an ensemble of Sphinx laureate string musicians.
Born to a white mother and a black father in 1970, Dworkin was
adopted as an infant by a white family. When he was 10, his family moved
from culturally diverse New York City to Hershey, Pennsylvania, where
he said he faced ridicule because of his race and his interest in violin
studies.
He founded Detroit-based Sphinx in 1997 as a way to encourage
diversity in classical music among children, especially minorities.
Dworkin, a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and President Barack Obama’s first
appointment to the National Council on the Arts, said he knows how
important it is to foster artistic talents among young people of color.
Dworkin, who in July became dean of The University of Michigan School
of Music, Theatre and Dance, is proud of Sphinx’s accomplishments. He
said the organization’s training programs reach 20,000 young people each
year and pique the interest of 2 million more through live and
broadcast audiences. According to sphinxmusic.org, more solo musicians and orchestras of color perform today than before the organization’s inception.
In this Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State interview,
Dworkin discussed the feeling of empowerment in music appreciation and
stressed the importance of the classical music collective to embrace
musicians of all backgrounds.
Q: You say your adoptive
mother inspired you to pick up the violin. How prevalent do you think
nature versus nurture is in how children learn to appreciate the arts?
A: Perhaps there is a perfect rule that calculates
nature versus nurture, however, I am not, unfortunately, aware of one.
However, I do think that both are factors in what constitutes success
with music for an individual. I suspect that there may be what we think
of as innate affinity for music, which may come from early inspiration.
And then there is the nurture piece, also known as consistent,
methodically informed hard work. In many ways, I do believe in Malcom
Gladwell’s theory of 10,000 hours being the basic prerequisite for
fluency in any discipline.
Q: Why do you think it’s important to introduce classical music to children and minorities?
A: I think classical music is an important facet of
human development. It is, therefore, critically valuable to any young
person, regardless of their background, status or geography. It is also
an avenue, a vessel, that permits us to build expression. Young people
are given the gift of expressing themselves with an instrument in their
hands. They are inspired to explore their own creativity through music.
Through Sphinx’s work in early education, we are privileged to observe
and witness that sense of wonder and empowerment when a young person
touches a violin for the first time. In underserved communities and
settings, our young people often view this experience as a refuge, a
place they look forward to coming (to) after school. In many instances,
that joy is simply irreplaceable. While we have so much evidence on the
correlation between study of music and academic success, the intrinsic
value of studying music and arts-enriched education and its impact on
the quality of life for young people is so very important.
Q: Why do you think there is a dearth of minorities involved in classical music organizations?
A: This is, of course, a complex question. There are
many historic and societal components to the reasoning and the answer,
including historical exclusion, lack of access to quality training (and)
to resources, lack of access to exposure, awareness and structural
barriers in our modern-day society that persist. However, the reality is
that there is a pool of highly qualified artists who simply need
exposure, opportunities, professional development and encouragement.
That takes a field-wide effort, even in context with organizations like
Sphinx, whose mission centers around the issue.
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