Music Credits:

“NY” composed and performed by Kosta T from the cd Soul Sand. Used courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

“Love Let The Wind Cry...How I Adore Thee" by Undine Smith Moore, performed by soprano Sirgourney Cook and pianist Sarah Bob. Performed live May 26, 2018 at Hibernian Hall, Boston as part of Castle of our Skins's "Ain't I a Woman" project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8GV-bTW740

“Wade in the Water” from Spiritual Fantasy No 12 by Frederick Tillis, performed by Gabriela Díaz, violin; Matthew Vera, violin; Francesca McNeeley, cello; Ashleigh Gordon, viola. Recorded live in the Boston Athenaeum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c68p3p_JT1g

 

“Positive Negativity” by Gary Powell Nash, performed by Ashleigh Gordon, viola and Anthony R. Green, from Castle of our Skins's Black Composer Miniature Challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkrqPTkLl0

Jo Reed: From the National Endowment for the Arts, this is Art Works, I’m Josephine Reed.

Ashleigh Gordon:  I would like to think that we encourage people to learn, and we invite people to do so in a way that is nonjudgmental. So, you don't need to be a musicologist or ethnomusicologist to come to our concerts and appreciate. You don't have to have prior knowledge or experience. You don't need to come with any kind of guilt, as-- you know, post 2020 guilt around, "I don't know. I've never heard this music, and it never bothered or crossed my mind to even question who I hear and who I see on stage," and sort of approach this with any kind of sense of guilt. But you can come into a space and know that there will be something for you to learn, and something for you to also contribute towards. So, I would hope that the space we create is something that we do with great care, and translates as being done with great care, and is able to provide an opportunity to really be curious; to learn and be curious.

Jo Reed: That is Ashleigh Gordon, she is a violist and co-founder and artistic and executive director of Castle of our Skins. Castle of our Skins is a concert and educational series dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music. Ashleigh Gordon and Anthony Green—classmates from the New England Conservatory of Music, founded the Boston-based organization in 2013. It was born out of the desire to foster cultural curiosity and to address lack of Black voices in Western classical music. A recent grantee of the Arts Endowment, Castle of Our Skins aims to highlight the achievements of Black artists through creative concert programs which weaves music with visual art, dance, history, or storytelling, as well as educational workshops designed for both in and out of the classroom. By collaborating with arts organizations across Boston, and operating as a collective of musicians, artists, dancers, and historians, Ashleigh has amplified the reach of Castle of our Skins and brought many more Black voices into the spotlight. I know how difficult it is to start a successful arts organization—and it’s typically not the career path a musician takes upon completing her masters. And that’s where I began my conversation with Ashleigh Gordon….

Jo Reed: Ashleigh, when most classical musicians graduate from the Conservatory, they hope for a solo career, they hope to join an orchestra. But when you graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, you made a very different decision.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes, I did, and that decision took about, maybe, 10 years or so, to really live into and fully appreciate. So, as you had mentioned, being an orchestral musician, having that as a career goal, was definitely front of mind. One of the reasons why I even wanted to become a professional musician, was seeing a live orchestra. I remember second row, sitting in front of the violins, and being really enamored with the experience of live energy and live music-making. But I did not feel comfortable in that setting. I have a lot of ideas, and I wanted to be able to express those ideas. I am appreciative of having the space to be able to think and create and build out a series-- a concert series-- having social and political ideas that I can work with, in addition to music-making, and having that freedom to be able to have this sort of self-agency is something that I really appreciate, and didn't necessarily find a home in the orchestral sphere. So I very much, again, appreciate chamber music. Solo playing is something that I also recognized is maybe not necessarily my strong suit, but definitely a collaborative space, working with others; so, wanted to find a way to have a chamber music outlet that I could do professionally, and that could support me professionally, in addition to also having a space where I could educate. I really do appreciate one-on-one intimate opportunities, and being able to do that, professionally, in my work, is something that I've really tried to build out as an entrepreneur.

Jo Reed: And you and your fellow classmate at the New England Conservatory of Music, Anthony Green, founded Castle of our Skins in 2013. First, what is the significance of the name, Castle of our Skins?

Ashleigh Gordon: Sure, yes. Castle of our Skins comes from a poem by Nikki Giovanni, and that poem is called Poem (for Nina), as in Nina Simone. And to paraphrase, it says, "We are all imprisoned in the castle of our skins." And if that's the case, treat our skin-- this castle-- as being a warm, welcoming, invitational place to live. Adorn it with beautiful things, really celebrate and honor it. So, celebration, beauty, excellence, Blackness, are really wrapped up in that poem, and are really wrapped up in this organization, as being foundational to our mission. And Anthony Green-- pianist, composer, social justice activist, definitely a classmate of mine. Graduation-- Ashleigh Gordon, Anthony Green, we were literally next to one another, and I think the universe had positioned us to be classmates at New England Conservatory, to really found this organization, but very much wanted to have a space where we could support one another, artistically, as fellow Black musicians, pre-dating Black student unions, which I know exist now in a lot of colleges and conservatories, but definitely didn't exist when we were students, and wanted to have an opportunity to learn more about ourselves, and about our ancestry and our lineage, as it extends, certainly, to New England Conservatory and the many graduates-- Florence Price one of them; Coretta Scott King; many Black graduates who attended the same hallways and walked the same paths we did-- having the space to honor all of that. So, very much an exploration, and now this sort of platform that is one for collaboration is really wrapped into the journey of Castle of our Skins.

Jo Reed: What was the goal when you and Anthony began Castle of Our Skins in 2013, and how it shifted and/or expanded over the years.

Ashleigh Gordon:   Our original mission was to celebrate African-American composers, and perform the music of African-American composers, and we have very much broadened that to celebrate Black artistry, and... I think the impetus behind that shift was recognizing that African diaspora contributions extended 500 years, <laughs> right, in the making, for classical music-- what we consider Western classical music-- and certainly beyond this country, beyond this continent. So, African-American composers, yes, certainly, we program, but there's Afro-European, and certainly African, and Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latino-- again, 500 years' worth-- and wanted to be able to holistically express Blackness as it's holistically expressed, which is music and; so, thinking of griots, thinking of storytellers, which use spoken word, which use movement, which use music, which use collective participation, communal participation: "I am because we are" sort of attitudes that are really integral to music-making in African diasporic cultures. So, the idea of expanding to really celebrate Black artistry in its wholeness-- music and, music plus-- is something that I think became very, very apparent early on, so we made that shift pretty early on.

Jo Reed: Yeah, it's very exciting. I mean, you collaborate across disciplines, and you collaborate with a lot of other organizations. "Partnership" could be your middle name.

Ashleigh Gordon: <laughs> Yeah.

Jo Reed: And I think one example is the incredibly rich and diverse show you put on a few years ago, in 2018, Ain't I a Woman.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes, that's-- that one, I'm very proud of. That had a brother presentation, I Am a Man, based off the sanitation strike in 1963, I believe, or '68.

Jo Reed: Sixty-eight.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yeah, '68 sanitation strike slogan, "I am a man." But Ain't I a Woman was a multifaceted project: music, obviously, as we are a music organization, but also included poetry by African diasporic women; a world-premiere commission by New York-based composer Jessica Mays, with original poetry that she also wrote. Since this was pre-pandemic, when we could be on site in spaces, we had an on-site-- Black market to support local Black female entrepreneurs; so, selling jewelry, selling handmade fashion design, selling handmade art pieces, and things like this. And then, as the whole entire evening was really in celebration of Black femininity, we had a pre-concert lecture to contextualize Black feminism, and a post-concert dessert reception of just pure celebration, pure indulgence, to celebrate, really, Black womanhood. The music was very expansive vocal traditions that extended from L. Viola Kinney, in the early 1900s, through, again, world-premiere composition. So, everything really rooted around Black feminism.

Jo Reed: As Artistic Director, you're the person who really thinks about putting the season together. What goes into that thinking and planning?

Ashleigh Gordon: Sure. I think, with everything that we have done, as has already been referenced, is done out of collaboration. So, if there is a visual artist, a dancer, a spoken-word artist, another music organization-- that is mission-aligned, I like to say, having a conversation and really just ideating together is how most things ultimately start. Same with venues, same with spaces: What kind of residency opportunities can be built out? And "residencies" being more than just a performance space, but what kind of educational opportunities, community engagement, workshops, sessions, can happen, to help build context around what it is we're trying to explore? And through that sort of iterative process, the tip of the iceberg is the season: what we're able to share and build out. So, next season, for instance, is our tenth anniversary, and we are literally starting with a ball. We're having a huge collaboration, celebration, with a visual artist here in Boston, where I am based. Daniel Callahan is his name. Daniel Callahan uses a unique practice he calls MassQing, which is based on indigenous practices of body decoration, using the face literally as a canvas to create these beautiful works of art, transforming our person into a work of art-- really, a walking work of art-- and having a huge celebration of communities of color. That will happen in July, at the Arnold Arboretum, which is also having many anniversaries, many celebrations, as it's a really important and one of the first arboretums, public spaces, in the country. That was a collaboration that has roots in a 2017 event that we also did, and even collaborations-- sort of ideations-- pre-dating that; so, many years project in the making, and being one that is something that starts from a simple conversation and, you know, "I enjoy what you do. How could we connect? Where are the overlaps?"

Jo Reed: Well, another collaboration was with the Stewart Gardner Museum, which was Witness: Spirituals and the Classical Musical Tradition, which is online for people who would like to see it. It's really wonderful, and I'd love to have you describe that show and how it came about.

Ashleigh Gordon: Sure. Well, definitely, the wonders of pandemic pivoting is...

<both laugh>

Jo Reed: A word I never want to hear again.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes. So, we were fortunate to have a great collaborative thought partner with the Gardner-- specifically, George Steel, who is the curator there-- and we did a program, pre-pandemic, with invited guest cellist Seth Parker Woods. Central piece: Julius Eastman, Holy Presence of Joan of Arc for 10 cellos, and a Boston premiere of Florence Price string quartet, and had a really great turnout and a really great energy around that collaboration, and wanted to do something the following year, the following year being pandemic year. So we couldn't do something in person, but George wanted to explore the archives of the Gardner; there was  lots of history around the usage of that space, one of which included having performances of H. T. Burleigh, and documents around African-American spirituals. So, he wanted to take that and extrapolate and create-- again, during the pandemic-- a video sort of docuseries around the Gardner, around spirituals, obviously having music, and wanted to illuminate its history in connection with the Gardner. So we were brought on board as performers, to perform works by Adolphus Hailstork, William Dawson, for instance, and perform in different parts of the Gardner, and help provide context around its historical significance.

Jo Reed: And I have to add Frederick Tillis...

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes, and Frederick Tillis.

Jo Reed: ... with Wade in the Water, which was extraordinary.

(music up)

 Jo Reed:  The performance was wonderful. It is a string quartet. You're all masked. How is playing with other people when you're masked? It has to be a change.

Ashleigh Gordon: Now it's so commonplace, it's almost like, when I'm in a grocery story, and I have my viola on my back, I don't know I have my viola until someone says, "What's on your back?" At this point, I don't recognize that I'm masked when I'm playing, because I'm so used to it. But definitely, early on, it was an extra barrier, where so much about someone's physical body expressions is how we engage as chamber musicians. So, a sort of upturn of someone's eyebrow can help foreshadow a ritardando, for instance, and being able to see their mouth and see their full face as being part of how we communicate... that was definitely something that we had to get used to. At this point, it's, again, commonplace, and something we are comfortable with. But certainly, early on was definitely something communicative that we needed to adjust to, and also acoustically, as sometimes playing with a mask can muffle the sound, ironically enough under our ears.

Jo Reed: We mentioned your educational programming. It's very robust, and I really, if you don't mind, would love to have you talk about some of it. You created something called Edu-tainment Recitals. So, who are these for, and what is it that you do there?

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes. I really enjoy Edu-tainment Recitals and our education-- I guess, what would be sort of traditional education or workshops, and things like that, for youth. Everything that we do, I consider educational. So, whether that's a sold-out concert or in a classroom, everything is foundationally related to education and fostering cultural curiosity. But the Edu-tainment Recitals are something that we developed as being more like tapas style, where it's a movement of this and a movement of that, and in the course of an hour, generally geared towards intergenerational, primarily youth, and then obviously youth and families, being able to experience a breadth of music-making. So, I had referenced 500-plus years of African diaspora contribution as composers, as creators, in what we consider Western classical music; so, being able to showcase that breadth in an hour, with a movement of this and a movement of that, and providing historical contextualization around why this particular piece, why this particular composer, and how this composer, who may have lived-- I'm thinking Chevalier De Saint-Georges, for instance, Afro-French, who may have lived in the late 18^th century-- how that person connects to you today, and how their story and history and legacy connect with you today. So, sharing music and sharing educational information that is hopefully planting of a seed to encourage, again, intergenerational audiences to want to continue to learn more.

Jo Reed: Well, it's certainly first cousin to your Deep Dive series.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes. Those allow me to sort of nerd out. I also teach at the Longy School of Music, of Bard College, and I teach a course on composers of the African diaspora; so, sort of repurposing some of my lectures around certain, either composers, certain styles or groups of composers-- the AACM, for instance...talking about genres or styles of music. So, an entire lecture around African-American spirituals, an entire lecture around Black female composers, entire lectures around orchestral music versus chamber music, that type of thing, and being able to take a, well, as the name suggests, a deeper-dive look into certain thematic... yeah, areas of African diasporic music-making.

Jo Reed: What do you think Castle of our Skins does best?

Ashleigh Gordon: Hmm. That's a great question. I would like to think that we encourage people to learn, and we invite people to do so in a way that is nonjudgmental. So, you don't need to be a musicologist or ethnomusicologist to come to our concerts and appreciate. You don't have to have prior knowledge or experience. You don't need to come with any kind of guilt, as-- you know, post 2020 guilt around, "I don't know. I've never heard this music, and it never bothered or crossed my mind to even question who I hear and who I see on stage," and sort of approach this with any kind of sense of guilt. But you can come into a space and know that there will be something for you to learn, and something for you to also contribute towards. So, I would hope that the space we create is something that we do with great care, and translates as being done with great care, and is able to provide an opportunity to really be curious; to learn and be curious.

Jo Reed: I'm really curious about this, Ashleigh: What prepared you for running an organization, for writing the necessary grants, for being able to get permissions for music, for dealing with contracts?

Ashleigh Gordon: A lot of that was learned on the job, <laughs> on the fly, I have to say. But I think, to expand a little bit about that, I have always been someone who was interested in bringing things to life. Had I not done music, I would've done graphic design. I was quite serious in high school; you know, divergent paths of either visual creation or musical creation. And ended up choosing music, but have always really been a person who liked to imagine. So, I have children's books, for instance, that I wrote and illustrated as a kid, and... again, visual art, graphic design, seeing things, and creating it on paper. So the idea of creating a concert series, or facilitating a connection and bringing that to life, also, for me, translates in that way of ideation to realization. And that had sort of traveled along with me in various spaces. So, in college and in my master's programs, I was President of the American Viola Society chapter at my college, and had leadership in other organizations, as well, too, throughout my studies, that would allow me to gain necessary skills of production, of coordinating, facilitating, reaching out, sort of cold-calling. Various-- at NEC, New England Conservatory-- entrepreneurial type of opportunities in their Career Center. I was a work-study student in their Career Center when Angela Myles Beeching was part of the Career Service Center then. And remember, there was a wall of over 100 very, very colorful worksheets. So, if you want to start a teaching studio, here's a worksheet on that. If you want to write a grant, here's a worksheet on that. If you want to build a résumé, build a website, here's a worksheet on that. So there was a sort of a wealth of information that I was surrounded by, as well as my own practical skills that I had sort of amassed in other leadership roles, and really being able to connect with resources; ask questions and connect with resources. So, in Boston, there's the Arts and Business Council. There's no shortage of newsletters and workshops for entrepreneurial artists and entrepreneurs across various disciplines-- for profit and nonprofit-- to learn technology skills, to learn grant-writing skills, to learn sort of the non-musical skills. So, literally, the non-musical things that you need, in order to bring your ideas to life, are things that I had always sort of picked up and tried to find for many, many years, pre-dating my time with Castle of our Skins.

Jo Reed: The pandemic certainly hit the performing arts very hard, as we know, and I want to know: How did you cope, in terms of keeping the lights on, both literally and creatively?

Ashleigh Gordon: Sure. Multiple pandemics; so, certainly, a health pandemic, and obviously a racial pandemic. And as a Black arts institution, I do not speak solely for Castle of our Skins when I say it was extremely stressful. <laughs> And all of a sudden, in terms of the lights, I mean, they were hot spotlights, 2020, just blaring down on Castle of our Skins and other Black arts institutions. So, the external factors beyond our control just caused so much more attention to be brought to us, so that attention translated into financial attention and just people doing bake sales, and selling CDs, and all sorts of grants and organizations and individuals reaching out with financial support, with opportunities, et cetera. So there was definitely an overwhelming onslaught of that, given the racial pandemics... which added a lot of stress, to be perfectly honest, for a very small organization such as Castle of our Skins. So, we didn't have, like other, I guess, non-Black arts organizations, a difficulty with keeping lights on for financial reasons, and also keeping programming alive. It very much, as a, again, community-minded, collaboratively-minded organization, was never a question for me of stopping the work that we do. So, finding opportunities to continue to make music, and if not make music, being able to support our spoken-word artists with a sort of Nightcap Series, where, on social media, for half an hour, they can present a series of poems. Our composers-- we started, during the pandemic, a Black composer Miniature Challenge project for African diasporic composers to write 30-second miniatures, originally for viola and piano-- myself the violist, Anthony R. Green being the pianist-- and we would record them virtually, Anthony living in the Netherlands at the time, and myself being in Boston. We had about 19, I think, composers from North America, Africa, Europe, and I want to say Canada. Yeah, Canada and the United States. So that was a great project, which we have certainly continued, and, like other organizations, really pivoting and seeing how we can leverage this digital space that we're in, and also leverage the, again, really hot, intense lights that were being shown on us, to make sure that our platform was one that was even more expansive, geographically, in terms of the voices that were being represented, as well as the disciplines that were being represented.

Jo Reed: I listened to quite a few of the pieces in the Miniature Challenge, and I was struck by the range of them, first of all. And it was clear you and Anthony were not in the same place, and you managed to make music together on Zoom, and my hat is off to you. That is hard.

Ashleigh Gordon: <laughs> Yes, that is very difficult. Fortunately, we've known each other for many, many years, so despite being in different time zones, we could still connect and make music with one another. Yeah, it was a great project to, early on in the pandemic, I should say, still have reason to practice; <laughs> if for nothing more than 30 seconds a week, but to still have reason to practice, when literally everything else had dried up, and obviously be able to provide so much room. We had an 11-year-old submit, who didn't know how to notate his music on traditional five lines, four spaces, so submitted just a recording of himself performing on piano. And I remember that, and thinking that there would have been no other sort of opportunity or way to have even connected with him, had this challenge not been presented to him. And through the powers of the Internet and connectivity that we have, I think, found during this time when we are socially isolated, being able to connect with someone so young, and being able to provide an opportunity for him-- and the other composers, as well-- has been really meaningful, to say the least.

Jo Reed: You also received a grant from the Arts Endowment ARP money, and I'm curious what that has allowed you to do, or will allow you to do.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yes. Again, so many blessings out of this very strange racial and health crisises [sic] that we're dealing with. But, fortunately, we have been able to use those funds to expand our team. So, what has largely been, for myself, Artistic and Executive Director, a huge amount of work, really doing the work of many-- Anthony, again, having been remote, really, since the founding, and still being really actively involved with the organization-- allowed for us to, again, expand our team. So we now, fortunately, have a Director of Education. We have a social media manager, a Director of Operations and Community Engagement. We now have a publicist. We have a bookkeeper. We are working towards having a development consultant. And ultimately, for me, I would love to really bring on a general manager and executive director, to offload some of the responsibilities, as you would find in an ED, so I can be more solely focused on artistic direction of the organization. So, those funds have really allowed for us to expand our human resources, being able to also support more digital resources that, again,this time of social distancing has really required of us; so, the videography, live-streaming services. You had referenced licensing and sync-licensing, which is certainly no small feat to have to account for. So, to function during this time, certainly, for one; and then also to lay roots-- lay real roots-- that will help us expand and operate, maintain some of this energy that we have had to just sort of rise to, with the necessary humans on board to make it all happen.

Jo Reed: I wonder, when you're looking at the landscape of arts institutions, and during the crisis of the pandemic, during this racial reckoning that happened simultaneously, what could be learned, or needs to be relearned, that could be applied moving forward, so arts institutions aren't stuck doing the same old same old? As you say, there really are opportunities here.

Ashleigh Gordon: Yeah. I think, if anything, being able to listen. There have certainly been no shortage of conversations, no shortage of DEIA consultants, who have been brought on board. No shortage of lectures, workshops, talks, et cetera, around racial equity, around-- especially in our field of music; specifically, classical music. No shortage of these conferences and workshops and talks and lectures. So, listening, I think, very much so. And then I think, also, making sure that what we are hearing, the various suggestions that, again, have been echoed and referenced in many situations. I won't go into them now, because, again, there's just a wealth of information and conversations that have already happened, but making sure that those efforts are built into long-term plans, so any sort of predecessor, especially in senior leadership, won't affect the institutional missions and visions and DEIA work that needs to happen. So, whether that's 10-year, 15, 20-year plans that are built out into strategic plans that are referenced at weekly meetings, that are referenced at retreats, that are kept alive as a living document, and kept alive as living action, those shouldn't be attached, in my opinion, to your ED, to your board, to any physical person, but really through the life of the organization, to really make sure that this is a sustained effort. So many colleagues that I have had pleasure of being on panels with, and have listened to on various panels and workshops and things, reference the cyclical nature of these sort of geyser moments, where there is heightened awareness around racial equity and diversity and access and intersectional racial justice; these geyser moments, and then pretty sharply followed by collective amnesia. <laughs> And then we have these, again, decades later, these geyser moments. So, we are in, some may argue, on that decline to that collective amnesia, which, historically and cyclically, has happened. But I think if we really do build out these efforts to be long-term sustainable-- just, say, for the next 50 years or 100 years-- thinking about sort of seventh-generation mindset: What are you building now for seven generations in the future, to make sure that we are really stabilizing our field, and being consciously mindful, now, to prevent that steep decline, or make it a little less jarring for future generations?

Jo Reed: Okay, and I think that is a good place to leave it. Ashleigh, thank you. Thank you for the work you do.

Ashleigh Gordon: Oh, sure. Yeah. Thank you for reaching out. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk, and such thoughtful questions, as well, too, so thank you for your time.

Jo Reed: No, not at all. It's a pleasure. Thank you.

That was violist and co-founder and artistic and executive director of Castle of our Skins, Ashleigh Gordon. Keep up with the concerts and programs of Castle of our Skins at castleskins.org. You can listen to their miniature concert series on YouTube.  We’ll have a link to both in the show notes where you can also find the music credits.

You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. Follow Art Works on Apple podcasts or Google play and leave us a rating, it helps people to find us. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I’m Josephine Reed. Stay safe and thanks for listening.

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