Aaron Dworkin

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Aaron Paul Dworkin (born September 11, 1970 in Monticello ) is an African American violinist and music teacher.

Dworkin was adopted by white parents when he was two weeks old and grew up in New York and Hershey, Pennsylvania. He took violin lessons from the age of five, attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and studied violin at the University of Michigan . His teachers included Vladimir Graffman , Berl Senofsky , Jascha Brodsky , John Eaken , Renata Knific , Donald Hopkins and Stephen Shipps .

In 1996 he founded the Sphinx Organization with the Sphinx Orchestra and the Sphinx Chamer Orchestra , which promotes African and Latin American string musicians and organizes annual competitions. For the final concert in 2002 Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson composed the Symphony of the Sphinx . Several final concerts by the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra are available on CD. In 2005, Dworkin and the Sphinx Organization received a National Governors Award .

Dworkin plays both acoustic and electric violins. He recorded two CDs: Ebony Rhythm and Bar-Talk . He also authored the autobiography Uncommon Rhythm: A Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Irish Catholic Adoptee's Journey to Leadership , the poetry collection They Said I Wasn't Really Black, and the children's book The 1st Adventure of Chilli Pepper . In 2005 he was recognized as a MacArthur Fellow ("Genie Award"), and he was also a member of the Obama National Arts Policy Committee . He was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by Barack Obama .

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