Canadian violinist Adrian Anantawan is changing the music industry. He was born without his right hand and most of his forearm, but that didn’t stop him from exploring music. He chose the violin; when he was 10, his family enlisted engineers to build a customized device to help him play it. “From the very first note that I was playing, I was really attracted to the sound and the connection of my body to the instrument and being able to express my imagination,” Anantawan said. His pursuit of music took him to study at the Curtis Institute of Music and to both Yale and Harvard. He has performed at the White House, the Vancouver and Athens Olympics, and the Kennedy Center. He’s also advocating to make music more accessible; Anantawan founded the Music Inclusion Ensemble: a group of students with disabilities, and their peers who support disability causes, who play music together. “As a classical musician, I believe that we are not necessarily stewards of the past but cultural practitioners and changemakers who push the boundaries of technique and expression. We also work to address key social problems of our time so that careers like mine are not seen as exceptional but as possible for all.”
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