Con Fuoco: A Podcast about Classical Music and its Future

Why is a lack of diversity harmful to classical music? with Afa Dworkin (Rebroadcast)

March 24, 2021 Daniel Cho Season 1 Episode 26
Con Fuoco: A Podcast about Classical Music and its Future
Why is a lack of diversity harmful to classical music? with Afa Dworkin (Rebroadcast)
Show Notes

This episode is a rebroadcast of my conversation with President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, Afa Dworkin. 

Afa Dworkin is the President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, where she oversees all fundraising, strategic, and artistic initiatives. Founded in 1997, the Sphinx Organization has four program areas - Education and Access, Artist Development, Performing Artists, and Arts Leadership - which form a pipeline that develops and supports diversity and inclusion in classical music at every level of our field: music education, performing artists, repertoire programmed, the communities represented in audiences, and artistic and administrative leadership. Sphinx Organization reaches more than 100,000 students and artists as well as live and broadcast audiences of more than two million annually. Ms. Dworkin’s leadership of the organization is informed by her musical training, over twenty-five years of experience in the field, as well as her international corporate experience as a trilingual interpreter and Executive Assistant to the President of ARCO, The International Oil and Gas Company in Baku in Azerbaijian. 

Ms. Dworkin and I discuss the question: Why is a lack of diversity harmful to classical music? We discuss why classical music is not a meritocracy, steps organizations can take to address diversity in a meaningful way, why this issue poses an existential threat to our field, and doing and saying the difficult things when no one is looking.

You can find out more about Ms. Dworkin and the Sphinx Organization at their website www.sphinxmusic.org.