Gareth Johnson
is on a roll. Last February, the 17-year-old violinist won the junior
division of the Sphinx Competition with his performance of the first
movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major. That feat led
to Johnson's soloing in performances of the first movement of the Bruch
Violin Concerto in G Minor with the New World and Atlanta symphonies
and the Boston Pops. The New World Symphony even invited him back to
perform the concerto in its entirety last December. The St. Louis native,
whose family recently moved to Florida, also spent the summer studying
violin at Encore, the Cleveland Institute of Music's intensive violin
workshop, on a Sphinx summer scholarship. Having graduated from high
school early, last fall he began studying at the Lynn University Conservatory
of Music in Boca Raton, Florida, while also looking forward to receiving
private coaching from Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Jaime Laredo, and Ida
Kavafian–all members of Sphinx's honorary committee–as part
of the organization's professional development program.
Small wonder
then that Johnson says that winning the Sphinx Competition–the
national music contest for young African-American and Latino string
players held each February in Detroit and Ann Arbor–"completely
changed my life."
It remains
to be seen whether the Sphinx Organization can completely (and literally)
change the complexion of America's symphonies by successfully creating
more opportunities for African-American and Latino musicians (who at
present each make up only a scant 1.5 percent of professional symphony
players nationwide, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League).
In a short period of time, though, the organization already has made
quite an impact, as conversations with competition winners and the Sphinx's
partners in major symphonies make clear.
The 2003 Sphinx
Competition will be held February 11–19 in Detroit and Ann Arbor.
Since the Sphinx
Organization was founded in 1996, its annual competition–the only
nationwide classical music competition open exclusively to minority
string players from junior high through college ages–has rewarded
participants with cash prizes, scholarships, master classes, and instrument
loans. It also has put each year's winners onstage as soloists with
one of several major orchestras.
The Sphinx
provides encouragement and role models for minority string musicians,
who often feel isolated in the classical music world. "We see it all
the time with our kids," says Sphinx founder and president Aaron Dworkin.
"You have this alienation, but also you have a sense of a high degree
of discomfort expressing what otherwise might be your culture."
As an African-American
who finished high school at Interlochen and later completed his B.M.
and M.M. in violin performance at the University of Michigan, Dworkin
can speak from personal experience. "In all those situations I was in,
I was either the only minority at all, or one of a handful," he recalls.
"I started asking myself why that was the case, why I lost focus in
practice, why I felt alienated, why in attending performances I was
the only minority in the audience, let alone onstage."
In addition,
classical string students who belong to ethnic minorities often have
trouble gaining access to the resources that will allow them to prosper.
Although Dworkin studied under Vladimir Graffman while growing up in
Manhattan, he points out that few minority students have access to top-quality
teachers at an early age. "Most kids who grow up in urban environments
don't have the resources to pay for those kinds of teachers, and their
parents don't know the industry," he says. "If you don't get involved
in that process [of pursuing a professional career as a classical string
player] before you're a senior in high school, it's too late."
Others agree
and laud Dworkin for his efforts. "You can't start [pursuing that level
of professional commitment] at the conservatory level–it has to
start much earlier," agrees Emil Kang, president and executive director
of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. "I believe wholeheartedly that the
work he's doing can have an impact." It's a measure of the Detroit Symphony's
belief in the Sphinx Organization that the DSO in July arranged to donate
the services of the orchestra itself, which will accompany the senior
division finalists during this year's competition. The DSO also will
continue to provide the use of its orchestra hall without charge and
provide advertising support, as it has since 2001.
The Money
Game
The Sphinx
Organization has a budget of just under $1 million and a full-time staff
of four. Although it lost a major sponsor last year when it reached
the end of a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Texaco Foundation (the
oil company's plans for arts giving have remained uncertain since its
merger with Chevron in 2001), Sphinx has received new support from the
DSO, the University of Michigan, and corporate sponsors Target and SBC
Ameritech.
As these affiliations
attest, the Sphinx Organization is an organizational achievement as
well as an artistic one. In establishing it, the 32-year-old Dworkin
drew on his experiences working for nonprofit organizations and in marketing.
He had begun his studies at Penn State, where he had been concertmaster
for the Penn State Philharmonic. When financial constraints caused him
to take time off from college, Dworkin worked as a marketing manager.
He later transferred to the University of Michigan to complete his master's
degree.
Given the combination
of partnership recruitment, fund-raising, competition organizing, and
community outreach that Dworkin manages, it's no surprise when he mentions
that his father says, "Aaron has finally come up with the most elaborate
way to avoid practicing."
The Sphinx
Competition reflects Dworkin's thorough approach. Each year, a screening
committee made up of Detroit Symphony musicians and University of Michigan
music department faculty members evaluates about 60 audition tapes from
around the country and selects nine semifinalists in both the junior
(under 18) and senior (18 to 26) divisions of the Sphinx Competition.
During the
first round of the competition, judges select three laureates in each
category without placement. In the final round, they perform for their
rankings, accompanied by the Sphinx Symphony, which comprises professional
African-American and Latino musicians from orchestras around the country
and minority graduate-level music students. (With the DSO taking its
place in the senior competition next year, the Sphinx Symphony will
be able to perform a showcase concert focusing on minority composers
during the competition weekend.)
Sphinx Symphony
members also teach master classes and provide mentoring to participants
during the competition weekend. "The networking that takes place between
our semifinalists and our orchestra is tremendous," Dworkin says.
In addition
to awarding prizes of $2,000 to $10,000 to the six finalists, the Sphinx
Organization arranges for summer music camp scholarships for all 18
semifinalists. The organization also recently took over the administration
of the American Symphony Orchestra League's Music Assistance Fund (originally
established by the New York Philharmonic), which provides scholarships
for minority musicians. All 18 Sphinx semifinalists will receive scholarships
through the MAF, which will total more than $20,000 next year.
Sphinx also
is developing scholarship programs with music schools themselves. The
University of Michigan and the Manhattan School of Music have agreed
to provide full scholarships to competition semifinalists and alumni.
Making a
Difference
By sharing
rewards among all the participants chosen to compete, rather than just
the finalists, Dworkin has steered the Sphinx Competition toward the
goal of supporting and providing opportunities to young minority musicians
in general, rather than a select few. "I'm actually not a fan of competitions,"
he says with a laugh. "Often times, you demotivate more people than
you motivate."
The impact
of his approach has won admirers. "It really is a positive experience
for everyone, even the ones that don't make it all the way," DSO's Kang
says.
Last year's
senior division winner, Patrice Jackson, 20, used the $10,000 she won
performing the fourth movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto and the second
movement of Haydn's Cello Concerto in D Major to help pay for her education.
A St. Louis native, Jackson is now in her final year of studies for
her music certificate at Yale University. "It's really nice," she says.
"My parents aren't the richest of parents. This will help my parents
out tremendously."
Jackson's success
in the competition also brought her to the attention of a St. Louis
businessman who is providing her with a new cello through a purchase-loan
arrangement. "That's one of the biggest hassles in any musician's life–the
prices are crazy high," she says. "Having a better instrument will definitely
help the overall first impression."
In other situations,
the Sphinx Instrument Fund loans instruments to competition semifinalists
for a year, based on need.
Like Jackson,
Gareth Johnson, who was contemplating the purchase of a second bow with
his $5,000 prize, also is grateful that the Sphinx Organization helped
ease the financial burden of his training on his parents. "I want to
be more independent. I'm tired of making them pay for everything," he
says. "These scholarships really help. They make me feel better, I know
they make my parents feel better."
As fate would
have it, Jackson and Johnson, who knew each other in St. Louis, crossed
paths a few months before the deadline for last year's competition.
Each agreed to enter if the other one did.
Because its
goal is to provide access as well
as promote excellence, the Sphinx Organization arranges for competition
winners to perform with orchestras nationwide. In all, 20 symphonies
across the country–including the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit,
and St. Louis symphonies–provide opportunities for the senior division
winners to perform as soloists with them, and many extend invitations
to the junior division winners as well. "In one week we had a laureate
performing with the Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Pops, and the Cleveland
Orchestra," Dworkin says with pride. "The experience of performing with
an orchestra is both invaluable and very hard to get. It makes them
infinitely better musicians and acclimates them to life in an orchestra."
Says Allison
Vulgamore, president of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: "They employ
their musical chops, but equally important, they begin to experience
the working culture of a professional orchestra, which is probably unfamiliar."
Competition
winners agree that hands-on experience is a valuable learning tool.
"The main thing I've learned is how to pace my practicing. Just pacing
myself throughout the time I'm there is a big, big difference," reports
Patrice Jackson, who since the competition has performed the fourth
movement of the Elgar concerto with the Atlanta, Dallas, Omaha, and
New Jersey symphonies.
Vincent Danner,
the guest conductor under whom Jackson performed in Dallas, has invited
her to play with the Memphis Symphony in April.
"I'm thrilled.
I'm having the time of my life right now," Jackson says. "Playing with
all these orchestras, it's really, really wonderful."
Gareth Johnson
also is savoring his newfound access to professional orchestras. "The
contacts are just great because you meet these very well-known and respected
musicians and conductors, and they can continue to promote you throughout
the years," he says.
Mutual Reward
It's not only
Sphinx Competition winners who benefit by gaining access to orchestras.
Symphonies across the United States are looking to the competition for
musicians who will allow them to maintain artistic excellence while
recruiting more ethnically diverse memberships that match their own
communities. "The Atlanta Symphony is always looking for great talent,
and the Sphinx program is a unique search engine for great talent,"
Allison Vulgamore says. "So it's a natural for the Atlanta Symphony
and Sphinx to pool that identified talent to work with the orchestra.
I think the field is going to see Sphinx candidates successfully audition
in American orchestras."
The Atlanta
Symphony is typically the first orchestra with which winners perform
after the Sphinx Competition, and for Dworkin it's one of the most moving
results of his endeavors. "This is the first time [the finalists] have
soloed with an orchestra, aside from the Sphinx Symphony," he explains.
"Afterward, there's this sense about them. It almost seems that they've
been told that what they do on their instrument has value, and often
times they haven't seen that before.
"They're in
a place where they don't know anybody, in a town they haven't been to,
playing for thousands of people. It gives them a sense that 'This can
be my life in music. I can play it and people want to hear it.'"
Yet Dworkin
cautions that Sphinx has only begun to make inroads into the field.
While Sphinx semifinalists now are enrolled at the Curtis Institute,
Harvard, the Indiana School of Music, Juilliard, and Yale, Dworkin anticipates
it will take five to ten years before symphony orchestras are significantly
integrated. "It's definitely coming, but if the efforts were to stop,
it wouldn't arrive," he says. "More needs to be done, not less."
He feels mixed
emotions that when trumpet player Tage Larsen recently became the first
African-American musician appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
it was a major news story. "What I'm looking forward to is when we go
to an orchestra and there's five or ten minorities onstage, and nobody's
making a big deal about it.
Photo
of Carl St. Jacques by Peter Smith.
