The Sphinx Competition expands to two separate age divisions to meet the high demand and abundance of talent: Juniors (under 18) and Seniors (18-26).

Mr. Dworkin realizes Sphinx needs to create a pipeline of Black and Latinx string musicians. To continue artist development and advancement after the competition, Sphinx launches partnerships with a dozen summer programs, offering scholarships to competition participants, and giving birth to the Summer Education Program. Among inaugural partners are Aspen Festival and School, Tanglewood, National Orchestral Institute, and National Repertory Orchestra. He also hires Sphinx’s first full-time staff member.

The Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, a professional all-Black and Latinx orchestra, is assembled to perform in Detroit and Ann Arbor, MI, in partnership with the National Symposium for African-American Artists and Educators founded by Dr. Willis Patterson, Dean Emeritus of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Michael Morgan, the Music Director of the Oakland Symphony serves as the inaugural guest conductor. The SSO performs its own concert as well as at the Sphinx Competition Finals, alongside Sphinx Competition laureates. Members of the inaugural orchestra includes past and present members of the New York Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Boston Symphony, and beyond. Today, the SSO is the longest-standing symphony orchestra comprising professional Black and Latinx musicians from across the country.

The Sphinx Symphony Orchestra commissions and premieres its first full-scale work by a living composer, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Symphony of the Sphinx, with words by poet Nikki Giovanni. Willis Patterson’s Ann Arbor-based Our Own Thing Chorale and Detroit’s Brazeal Dennard’s Chorale perform with the orchestra at the premiere, conducted by Dr. Leslie B. Dunner. Symphony of the Sphinx was to be the final full-scale work completed by Perkinson who died in 2004.

To date, Sphinx has commissioned 30+ new works and arrangements by Black and Latinx composers and has awarded the Sphinx Medal of Excellence to five composers: Gabriela Frank (2013), Damien Sneed (2014), Jessie Montgomery (2020), Carlos Simon (2021), and Joel Thompson (2023).

In honor of its 10th anniversary, Sphinx commissions Delights and Dances by composer Michael Abels with the premiere held at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, MI, featuring the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and alumni.

The Sphinx Virtuosi embarks on its inaugural national tour of 10 cities, including Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, and Nashville, culminating at Carnegie Hall. The tour reaches 10,000 people and garners laudatory reviews.

The Sphinx Soloist Program grows to 20 orchestral partners.

The Catalyst Quartet is founded, formed of principal players of the Sphinx Virtuosi, and serving as the latter’s featured quartet.

Sphinx Performance Academy expands its reach to two chapters: Roosevelt University and Oberlin Conservatory.

The Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and Sphinx Virtuosi serve as resident ensembles for Napa Valley’s Festival del Sole, appearing in numerous performances and collaborations with Joshua Bell, Pinchas Zukerman, Alondra de la Parra, and Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

The Sphinx MPower Artist Grant program launched, awarding an average of $100,000 in competitive scholarships designed to empower alumni of the Sphinx Competition, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Virtuosi, Sphinx Performance Academy, Sphinx Medals of Excellence, Sphinx LEAD, and EXIGENCE to achieve their career objectives in classical music.

Jessie Montgomery, Sphinx Virtuosi Composer-in-Residence, is commissioned by Sphinx to write Banner, scored for string quartet and string ensemble, as a tribute to The Star-Spangled Banner on its 200th anniversary. The work garners rave reviews, including from The New York Times, and continues to be programmed today.

Sphinx receives a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award granting a historic opportunity to feature its young artists, The Perfect Fourth Quartet, at The White House, in a performance for then first lady Michelle Obama and distinguished dignitaries and guests, receiving a standing ovation.

SphinxCon is reimagined as SphinxConnect, the epicenter for artists and leaders in diversity. This annual gathering draws an unprecedented number of participants, almost tripling its initial reach with the most recent edition of SphinxConnect in 2021 welcoming over 2,000 participants, establishing it as the largest and longest-standing convening dedicated to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the performing arts.

Joel Thompson’s powerful and acclaimed The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, written to honor seven Black men killed by police or authority figures, is premiered during the Sphinx Competition by the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, led by Dr. Eugene Rogers.

The Sphinx Performance Academy expands its reach to three chapters, including the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and Curtis Institute of Music, annually welcoming nearly 100 students.

This year also marks the inaugural Overture summer camp in Detroit and Flint, MI.

Sphinx launches the National Alliance for Audition Support seeded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation in partnership with the New World Symphony and League of American Orchestras. NAAS is an unprecedented national program with the mission to increase diversity in American orchestras by offering Black and Latinx musicians a customized combination of mentoring, audition preparation, financial support, and audition previews.

Sphinx launches its first professional vocal ensemble, EXIGENCE, under the direction of its Founding Director, Dr. Eugene Rogers.

Sphinx launches the Sphinx Venture Fund (SVF), pledging to invest $1.5 million to transform the future of cultural diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the arts through competitive grants. SVF aims to catalyze initiatives designed to solve a challenge or an issue related to DEI in the sphere of the performing arts, with an emphasis on classical music.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sphinx launches its first digital tour for both the Sphinx Virtuosi and EXIGENCE, holds its first virtual gala (and most successful to date) and transitions all educational programs to the digital space.

Sphinx holds its inaugural national orchestral excerpt competition, under the umbrella of Sphinx Orchestral Partnership Auditions (SOPA).

The number of orchestral partners surpasses 100, awarding $17K in prizes annually and securing 75 professional performance opportunities for emerging Black and Latinx orchestral musicians.

Sphinx’s digital audience reach exceeds 66 million, as a result of its innovative virtual programming amidst the global pandemic.

SphinxConnect holds its first virtual edition, garnering the largest participant base across the globe, while the Sphinx Competition sees a spike in demand and applicant pool during its virtual formal edition.

Sphinx Organization celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Sphinx Virtuosi make their international debut in São Paulo Brazil.

The Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and EXIGENCE Vocal Ensemble make their highly acclaimed debut at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, MI, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. (Photo credit: Jati Lindsay)