“Detroit’s Sphinx Organization, which works to get children from underserved communities into classical music, will be honored Tuesday at the White House by first lady Michelle Obama for its outreach program to the Flint and Detroit public schools,” reports Michael H. Hodges in Monday’s (11/14) Detroit News. The ceremony will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live on November 15th at 2:20 p.m. ET. “ ‘It’s going to be a splash of sorts,’ said a clearly delighted Afa S. Dworkin, Sphinx president and artistic director. Sphinx Overture, the beginning-violin program being honored, offers free instruments and lessons to all of Flint’s public elementary schools and several in Detroit. Sphinx is one of 12 winners, chosen from 251 nominees, for the 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The annual award recognizes the best in after-school, creative youth-development programs that harness the power of the arts to boost academic achievement. … Playing for the first lady will be the Sphinx Perfect Fourth String Quartet … [and] 12-year-old Joselyn Hernandez, who trained with Sphinx Overture for five years.… Sphinx, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, was founded by Dworkin’s husband Aaron … [who was] concerned by the lack of people of color in the classical-music world.”
Posted November 15, 2016
