A. Kori Hill
Where do you go when looking for new music? Not “brand new” but new to you, whether written last year or two hundred years ago?
You can go to the library and ask a librarian for suggestions. But what if you don’t have the name of a composer or composition? Maybe they’ll suggest an encyclopedia or collection of interviews with composers, like William Banfield’s Musical Landscapes in Color or Helen Walker-Hill’s From Spirituals to Symphonies.
But reading about new music and composers isn’t the same as listening to them. And neither of those books come with a recording! You can look up specific pieces, see if there’s a recording or a performance uploaded to YouTube. But what if you want to hear the piece in person??? You go to a Castle of Our Skins concert!
Castle of Our Skins is a non-profit music organization based in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Founded in 2013 by Anthony R. Green and Ashleigh Gordon, Castle of Our Skins is all about centering Black artistry. They give concerts, offer educational programming, residencies, lectures, masterclasses, and more that help people learn about the depth and variety of classical music in Black American communities.
If you visit their website, you’ll see a list of the music they’ve performed. They don’t ignore the canon, but they don’t center it and repeat it either. There’s J.S Bach and Luciano Berio, but there’s also Irene Britton-Smith and Ulysses Kay and Bongani Ndodani-Breen and Mokale Koapeng. On their first album, Homage, with pianist-scholar Samantha Ege, Castle of Our Skin members perform chamber music by Ndodani-Breen, Zenobia Powell Perry (who lived and worked in Ohio!) Coleridge-Taylor, and Frederick C. Tillis. They even played some of the music from the album for PBS’ Basic Black show last year.
So many names and pieces to choose from! But what if you also want to play the music?
Castle of our Skins has got you covered there too. They have a shop where students and teachers can get scores and curriculum guides to pieces by contemporary composers like Jelani N. Surpris, Anthony R. Green, and participants in the Black Composer Miniature Challenge.
The Black Composer Miniature Challenge is a competition where composers get commissioned to write a piece 30 seconds or less on a certain theme and for specific instruments. One of those pieces is Deeann Mathews’ Clouds to Sun Lullaby. Performed by flutist Orlando Cela and harpist Charles Overton, Clouds to Sun Lullaby is from year two of the Challenge, where composers were asked to write something for flute, piccolo, alto flute, and harp.
Sometimes the works involve dancers too. Year four called for works for saxophone, several of which also feature a dancer. Like Boyd E. Gibson’s Variation on a Kenyan Lullaby (Nyamgodo, Nindo Tere). As you listen to Seychelle Dunn-Corbin and watch Jenny Oliver, consider: how does the music and movement match each other? Do they not match each other? Does the music drive the movement or vice versa?
It can be hard finding new music. But don’t give up! Folks like Castle of Our Skins can help you find new pieces, new composers, new music to learn and perform. I encourage you to look up some of the composers mentioned here and find more music to love!
