This spring, Aaron Dworkin (IAA 86-88) visited the Interlochen campus to share his thoughts about minority involvement in classical music and memories from his days as an Academy student. He is the founder and president of the Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing black and Latino participation in classical music.

Excerpts of speech by Aaron Dworkin

People sometimes ask why I care so much about diversity and why I have dedicated my life to pursuits that further that end. I have the easiest response to that question: "I am a black, white, Jewish, Irish Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness who plays the violin and had an afro. I am the definition of diversity. I don’t have a choice but to do what I do." 

I spent my junior and senior years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy and these were two of the most incredible years of my life. It was the first time in my life when every person around me was also into the arts. Interlochen had a lasting impact on me - the experience took away the anger, the frustration and the desire to lash out at the world around me and it evolved those impulses into a sense of self and what I needed to do - or at least try to do - in the world.

It was not until I was working on my degrees at the University of Michigan that I first learned there were black composers. I went into a lesson one day and my teacher asked if I had any interest in playing music by black composers. I was startled and looked at him and asked "you mean black classical composers?" He smiled and began pulling volumes off his shelves.

That led me to question why no one had told me of William Grant Still, Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, David Baker, Joseph Boulogne St. George (an Afro-French contemporary of Mozart) or the countless other minority composers whose accomplishments litter the annals of the classical music repertory. It was within the context of these questions and my immersion in the incredible music to which I had recently been exposed, combined with the lack of minorities in the audiences or on stage at classical music concerts, that led me to create the Sphinx Organization.

The work we do is critically important to achieving diversity in the arts. Sphinx envisions a world in which classical music reflects cultural diversity and plays a role in the everyday lives of youth. Founded in 1996, the Sphinx Organization has grown from an annual competition for young black and Latino string players into a national arts and youth development organization serving more than 55,000 students annually.

I hope I am leaving you with a renewed sense of Ashley Montagu’s words that "the deepest defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become."

I encourage you to take responsibility and let those whose struggle was greater and whose resources were lesser than yours serve as your guide and example.

If you are to be a teacher, do not rest until you have achieved the glory of being the guiding star for all of our young people. If you are to be a business leader, scientist or doctor, do not allow the obstacles before you to prevent you from building a better society for mankind. If you are to be a musician, actor or dancer or work in the arts, do not be content until your daily work in your art is enriching those around you by crafting expressions of the lives we live.

Wilder will lead diversity task force at Interlochen

Last July President Kimpton recommended to the Board of Trustees that a special task force on diversity be created. While Interlochen continues to seek and regularly achieves significant international diversity, President Kimpton expressed his hope that the student body would also draw upon and reflect the abundant diversity within the United States.

The Board of Trustees named Kurtis Wilder to chair the task force with the objective of accomplishing greater diversity among the faculty, staff and students at Interlochen. Wilder is a judge on the Michigan State Court of Appeals, an Interlochen Trustee and a parent of an Academy graduate. The task force will report to the board next July with a plan for improving diversity in the coming years.

The task force has already met with representatives from foundations, the Sphinx Organization and admission and affirmative action personnel at the University of Michigan. Interlochen will also look to its extensive network of alumni and advocates for ideas, energy and support.

If you would like to participate in this effort, please e-mail diversity@interlochen.org.

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