Celebrating Black Artistry through Music

All right, well, hello, Ashleigh. I’m just so thankful that you’re joining us today on the show.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So for those who may not know you, can you give us a little bit of information about yourself, your background, and why you chose the viola as your instrument of choice?

These days like to consider myself for an introduction as a citizen artist in the sense that I am part of my community, I am a recipient of, a benefactor of what is around me and my medium through which I can engage is through music. So citizen artist. I think the viola plays a lot into that specifically because of how it operates an orchestra, how it operates in chamber music most often as a connector. And very much again see myself as being a connector in a lot of ways. I very much enjoy chamber music and spend most of my days and I am engaged with music as a chamber musician. I also do a fair amount of arts administration. And what I find with arts administration, why I’m passionate about that, is that it allows me the playground space to be able to bring communities together. So that’s citizen artistry in action through arts administration. Having the skillsets and the capacity to actually do that kind of work. So more specifically, I’m Boston based. I’m a Jamaican American violist and administrator. And I have taught for private group instruction, violin and viola for over 20 years, black music history courses, et cetera, lectures as well. And I’m excited to be able to to be here. Ah! Why I picked the viola? I didn’t answer that one. I started on piano. I have an older brother, older sister, and that was just what we did. So I started on piano. For any pianist out there, I’m so sorry, but I hated it. And very much wanted to learn violin. I’m not sure where that obsession came from. But I started in fourth grade in public school music education. So very much a fan of public school arts instruction, keeping that alive.

And in college was able to dabble a little bit in viola as a second instrument. And eventually had a summer job where I was able to learn and therefore, well, I was hired and therefore had to practice both violin and viola. And practicing viola, I realized that, again, the instrument and how it functions is more akin to my personality of being a connector. So the rest is history.

I love that. And I’ve never thought of the viola as a connector. But you’re totally right, it is in its role in both the orchestra as well as individually. And I love the sound of the viola. My daughter played cello for a really long time and I enjoy the cello but the viola just has a richness to it that I personally love. So your avenue into music was through your family, just your family dynamic and public school? Or was it, did you find your passion for it develop over time in another way?

Yeah, I mean, my Jamaican immigrant, first generation American, my famous Jamaican immigrant, very much wanted to have the discipline and rigor that music instruction provides, hard work ethic and skills. So we all, my siblings and the youngest, all engaged in music. There was always music in the household. My father has a huge record collection of all sorts of styles, all sorts of genres of music, heavily focused on jazz. And so it was always in the house, it was always in the space. Had I not done music professionally, I would have done graphic design. So I was always writing children’s books or playing or creating or just making stuff. And so the idea with music, specifically in also the arts administration, I’m able to just make stuff, make happenings, make music, make commissions and make sounds just to basically play it all day.

It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. And as a musician myself, I absolutely agree. It’s just, it’s a great medium to play with, not that any of the other arts are not. It’s just for me, it’s just the natural affinness. So I’m so glad to hear that you have that as well. So you’ve been referencing your art administration, and I really want to dig into that a little bit because I don’t typically hear from a lot of arts administrators. So I’m really curious about that role and how that evolved for you.

How did you come into arts administration?

Sure. I liken it again to my Caribbean background of being strong-minded, but I am very much like, I’m opinionated, and opinionated violists maybe don’t make the best orchestral musicians, I might say. Or, so in any case, I don’t want to cast shade on anyone, but having my own space, I always was interested in creating stuff. So leadership roles I sought out in primary and secondary education. President of the Green Club in high school, greater recycling and environmental education now and headed my college FASTA chapter and always tinkering, always planning. So I had those skill sets sort of nurtured through experience, not necessarily in its administration and business background formally and in my masters when I came to Boston, had a work study position in the career services office. So there was always how to, how to talk in worksheets and books and panel discussions. So I gained a lot of knowledge that way, very interested in contemporary music. I have another music degree in addition to viola performance in contemporary music specifically, and very interested in the idea of all music is new music regardless of what was written, and wanting to be able to have an influence in how I can tell a story, how I can shape a story. I thought I would have my own street trio that commissions and performs new music and really be a key agent in how those stories are told, both on stage and the sort of curation of the stage. And then eventually, I’m worked into the work that I’m doing now, which is still around the idea that all music is new music. So that…storytelling aspect is important. And the work specifically is with Castle of Our Skins. I’m happy to share more about Castle of Our Skins as well too.

Yes, yes, I want to definitely talk about Castle of Our Skins. So first of all, tell me about the name. Where did you come up with the name?

So Castle of Our Skins takes its name from a Niki Giovanni poem. Niki Giovanni is one of my favorite poets, favorite authors and minds. And the poem is for Nina Simone. It’s a paraphrase, it says that we’re all imprisoned in the Castle of Our Skins, and if that’s the case, we’re going to treat our skin as a palace. Treat it like a castle, love it, and don’t let the beautiful things be proud to show it off.

And so the idea is at least a blackness and specifically black American is pride, love, honor, celebration, joy, and blackness or maybe not always in the same sentence. Um, and certainly historically. So the idea of just total celebration, love 365, seven days a week as it relates to the full spectrum of complexity of blackness and really around the African deist force, not only black American, but Caribbean, for instance, and African and really wherever it’s shown up historically and continues to show up. So yeah, the name encapsulates a lot of the work.

That’s amazing. So tell us a little bit more about it. So tell us about the organization, what it is, what you do, all of it. I’m very curious.

Sure, yeah. So I was co-founded in 2013 with myself and a black pianist composer named Anthony R. Green. We met during our masters in Boston when we were students at the New England Conservatory. They say that we’re alphabetical buddies, Ashleigh Gordon, Anthony Green. So we were always in roll call next to each other. This predated during our masters, predated affinity spaces, predated BSUs and colleges and conservatories, and what’s seemingly to be a little bit more commonplace now. So finding affinity, finding connection, both really interested in contemporary music, both really interested in classical music as well, and performing and just community. So two years is only getting your feet wet in terms of relationship building. So post studies.

We wanted to find a way to still support each other and have a way to connect. So our friendship grew into how do we continue to, despite living on opposite sides of the country and opposite sides now of the Atlantic, have connection. And through a little bit of a curiosity, Google search, going into libraries, et cetera, that we all know now is just incredibly very easy, found that there’s other black performers, other black composers that we can also explore and find connection with. So what started as one concert and one educational series back in 2013, 2014 has now grown into 11 series and no shortage of stuff that we do. So Castle of Our Skins now in this iteration is a concert and education series that is dedicated to celebrating black artists, truth and music. And we do that.

Every space is an educational space, but in terms of the concert space, very interdisciplinary as in thinking about griots, as thinking about culture bearers, telling stories, telling histories through movement, through music, through spoken word, through dance, being able to engage in all kinds of disciplines. So music plus, I would say. And very easily like our name, which comes from a poem. Engage with spoken word, engage with visual art, engage with dance and yes, engage with chamber music and multimedia and all sorts of things. But the focus, the subject, again, like the name, is around black artistry in the fullest. So that could be social activism, abolition, civil rights, and it can also be joy and black love in the sort of full spectrum of humanity as the full spectrum of blackness is synonymous with that.

And the educational series, again, everything is educational, but specifically the education series involves workshops, interactive workshops, and more recently involves a bunch of publications for elementary, middle school, and high school students, as well as companion curriculum guides so you can play, and more importantly, you can learn about Black Art District.

Amazing. Now do you invite the students into the concert area or do you go to the schools or how does that work?

Yeah, so most of our programming is free and family friendly so that there’s always an open invitation. We have a series of programs that we call edutainment recitals. So mixing education and entertainment and that might look like in my head I’m very food oriented so sort of teppa style. I’m open to this, a moment of that, and then we contextualize. So in the span of 45 minutes an hour you get quite a breath of what Black artistry could look like, what you may have thought it looked like, and then what it actually, you know, the full spectrum of what it could look like. So we have programs like this. We have interactive workshops, one of which, for instance, is for solo narrating violists, called The Little History that tells the stories of nine different figures in Black history through original music, audience interaction, original poetry, sing-in sort of, you know, teach at the same time.

But that is something that we can bring into schools. We also right now are doing an intercollegiate Black Student Union Fellowship. We are based in Boston, so there’s no shortage of academic institutions here. And being able to, certainly when I was a student, connecting within one school was hard enough, and then connecting within, amongst schools is even harder. So inviting New England Conservatory, Longy is in the area, Boston Conservatory, Berkeley block student union or undergrad college students to find fellowship, professional development, social outings and concertizing together. So in that sense, it’s very experiential learning. And then to be able to get outside of Boston and get these publications, for instance, we have a series of works for string quartet, professional string quartet, advanced string quartet, like a high school group, and elementary student strings on subjects of abolition and spirituals and freedom, for instance, with companion curriculum guides. And we’ve only been able to do it in Boston, so the publication aspect allows any educator anywhere to be able to bring that kind of educational experience into their classrooms without bringing a whole string quartet from Boston. So the education ranges, for sure.

That’s awesome. And I love the fact that you’ve published this curricular component because I think it provides a set of equity across whoever needs it, right? That again, that is a cost barrier. It’s something I believe very strongly and it’s why I started our organization because at the time, 10 years ago, arts integration was difficult to do or to find resources for unless you were willing to bring in very expensive teaching artists or experiences being able to provide at least an avenue towards that, right? For equity purposes, I think is so important. I think it’s fantastic. I’m curious how you select the music for your seasons and what you focus on or what you choose to focus on for your educational series.

Absolutely. Sure. As chamber music is so integral, relationships by default are so integral. And after, as you know, 10 years, you build a lot of relationships. So at this point, I have no shortage of composers, artists, other like-minded organizations, scholars, authors, historians, etc. in my network to be able to help keep me fresh within the sort of local and national and international scene as to who’s out there, what’s out there. Citizen artist, again, I am part of this world I’m influencing and benefiting from, so the subjects that are 2024 specific or not specific, but top of mind, etc., that I can have dialogue with is also part of why music chosen versus others, type of a deal. But ultimately relationships is how I would answer that. In the early days, very much a proud nerd and researcher that I enjoy, if I had nothing else to do, just nine to five in the library and very much did that in the early days. So local libraries, public libraries, we have a pretty great system here in Boston with public libraries. Harvard is around the corner, which has a great archive. Boston University as well, and you see. So being able to just spend days researching is really fun. I’ve done research at what, unfortunately it doesn’t exist anymore but the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago, which as the name suggests is just this huge hub. It was a huge hub of black music research, the Schomburg Center in New York. Now there’s a lot more awareness of digital sites and databases and spreadsheets and things like this. So being able to just engage my own curiosity and learning has certainly helped for sure. And then as collaboration is such a part and also interdisciplinary is such a part, oftentimes the concert experience, the happening I guess you’ll say because it’s music plus the happening, is really driven by the people.

So if that’s a dancer, there might be a different lens that the dancer would bring that I certainly as a non-dancer would be able to provide, or same as a spoken word out of some multimedia film. Sorry. So it’s an iterative process, I guess I’ll say.

Gotcha. And I was just going to say that the interdisciplinary aspect of it, I was wondering, I know for me when I’m working on curricular writing for arts integration of any kind, I’m often inspired by medium outside of my own. So while music is my natural medium, oftentimes I’ll see a piece of artwork or a dance that will then inspire me to connect that with my natural avenue and beyond. So I was curious if you also had that experience as well where various mediums or even other content areas, science, something that’s happening currently in history, if that also impacts the music that you select.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We, thinking of an example, did a sort of brother-sister project around black masculinity and black feminism. And being able to, for the black masculinity, it was called I Am a Man, which was a political statement from Black sanitation workers advocating for their humanity. And we shared James Baldwin, I’m a Negro, we had conversations with high school students around masculinity that then generated poems that were performed in our final program, we commissioned work. I think it was based on a kind of common poem perhaps if I’m not mistaken, this was some years back, but in any case, the subject matter of black masculinity and information, and then assistive project around black feminism and Audra Lorde and just being able to engage with so many activists and writers and concepts threaded with music made a lot of sense, right? And it was natural to be able to do something like that.

Amazing. I love that. What do you think is a common misconception about music and black artists and maybe how we might reframe or even overcome that narrative?

Sure, I think a misconception that I have still seen over the years is one of predictability and sort of one-dimensionalness in the sense that the phrase Black music or Black composer may have a connotation of a certain sound, a certain genre, a certain subject matter that must be included, and that if it doesn’t, it’s not Black music.

And I don’t know if you’ve seen, for your audiences, if you’ve seen a new movie that’s out in American fiction, which really totally wrestles with the exact same subject, right? So for those that haven’t, a black author, this isn’t a spoiler alert, but a black male author challenged with the idea of writing a quote, unquote, black book. And he’s like, it is a black book. It’s a book, and he wrote it. So therefore, it is. But the perception, the marketability, the categorization that we’re so obsessed with doesn’t allow for nuance and multidimensionality. So again, the sort of predictableness I think is, is still here. And I think for our reframing, instead of thinking about, and even speaking about sort of the novelty aspect that this is a work by a Black composer, and therefore that’s it, that’s the only sort of point of entry, saying that this, this is I’d like a composer who wrote a book about love or who wrote music about a universal theme of nostalgia and memory and connectivity and vulnerability and whatever. The same phrase you might talk about some other composer, some other historic composer, some German composer, who knows right, and the sort of universality that they’re speaking about. Even if the subject matter is one of social justice or racial tension, there’s so much universality within it. So the talking points, for sure, I think we can reframe. So what is the why? What is the in-between-the-lines point of the music and being able to invite people, yeah, invite people to have a relationship that way. I think in one of the projects, which I wanted to mention, going back to education that we just launched this year, is hoping to do that, to sort of humanize more of the music. And it’s called the Music Inclusion Hub. We literally just launched it a couple of weeks ago, and it’s designed to be this digital space for elementary school college educators to have culturally responsive resources. So, Cass Lever stands our contribution to this hub are our scores. Some of those scores I already referenced as sort of side by side, string quartet and string strings. And the idea is the curriculum guide helps contextualize and understand what social science, what politics, what even, you know, math, what sort of universal subjects and skillsets you might be able to work on with music by Black composers. So yes, there may be and often is a social justice lens or angle, but there’s so much more. There’s so much more that touches upon so many people. Also with that hub is other contributing partners, the Belongé Initiative, which is a DC-based organization focused on promoting and advocating for women and gender marginalized composer. They have a database of about 10,000 entries at this point, also with curriculum guides to contextualize the humanity. And then another partner, Decomposed, which was based in Chicago, sort of a sister organization to us, with media around black composers, again, with curriculum to show the humanity, the multidimensionality of these humans.

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m gonna make sure that we put all the links to all of those in our show notes so that people who wanna go back and explore more and be able to find them can very easily. Speaking of the social justice aspect and social change, I know that this is an area of passion for so many of educators and especially yourself, I know. So how do you feel like the arts can serve as a pathway to making social change through our educational system?

Yes, I just came back from the Sphinx Connect conference in Detroit, and this is some decades now that they’ve been doing this conference, and there was a speaker, Arturo Ofero, who’s a Mexican-American pianist, composer, educator, and to paraphrase a bit of something he said which resonated with me in thinking about this question was that sort of the passion for him being a musician, the appeal of the arts, is that it allows people to gather around a campfire for truth, conversation, learning, to be provoked, right? To be provoked, to be the provoker, provocateur. And I think really uniquely through the arts, we have that capability of, again, touching someone’s inside without obviously cutting them open to the deal, but being able to reach on a human level to the point where someone can be vulnerable, where they can have an emotional intelligence, where they can build a sense of trust to then have a difficult conversation. So kind of leaning into that, if we want to engage and inspire our students to have activism as it relates to understanding how history is related to the present and appreciating intersectionality and social justice, politics, climate change, etc. I think that leaning into that and infusing that so it’s commonplace in the arts is not an add-on, it’s not your extracurricular activity after school, it’s not a once a month, once a week kind of subject, but it’s threaded throughout. And an example that I can give is also based here in Boston with the Boston Children’s Chorus which also is decades old at this point, but it was founded by an activist, not a musician. And the activist knew that fundamentally threaded throughout the curriculum, the idea of having children sing about LGBTQI rights. They did a project around child trafficking, middle schoolers were able to talk about that and learn about it, global warming, racism, female empowerment. And then most importantly, not just singing, but very much in between the lines, learning, engaging, and not being shy about it as educators and as students. Yeah, I think the challenge I might say to the listeners is sort of why are we teaching? Are we teaching for skill sets? Are we teaching for the technique aspect, teaching to a test? Or are we trying to really instill some…

and life values for who will ultimately be our future leaders and future citizens. So in that case, I lean into that aspect of treating that campfire as a place of provocation and that’s sort of the foundation that I then built upon.

What you were saying reminds me so much of the idea of cracking people open, whether they’re comfortable with it or not, which then of course reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s beautiful words of, you know, the cracks are where the lights get in. So I think it’s, I think so much of the turmoil that we’ve seen in education, the politics that have come in, the tension sitting on that tension line often when I have conversations with even my own family members that are very much have Old ways of thinking I would call it It’s very difficult sometimes to feel like there’s something happening under the surface And I think the arts to your point really allow that to happen in a non-confrontational way. It’s really your interpretation of it. However, you’ve perceived that and then hopefully at some point it cracks you open to seeing something beyond what is currently in front of you. Really quickly before we head out, I would love to know what you’re most looking forward to this year in your own work as well as possibly like what’s coming up in the world that you’re most excited about.

Sure. I’ll reference again this music inclusion hub since we just launched it and expanding that grown, that adding more resources and hoping that it does the job as we say it is, which is to impact children’s lives. And I think more broadly with Castle of Our Skins, with our work, we’re expanding our team. I co-founded it as I already referenced. I’ve been the executive artistic grant writer marketing manager, all the things of what you can imagine for a profit. So the expansion of the team most recently with the hiring of an executive director has allowed for me to sort of pare down my title to be artistic director and think about what is my perspective as what I think the direction of art is. And so just to foster my own cultural curiosity and continue my own learning experimenting and growth. Excited for that for this year.

Absolutely. That’s wonderful. So, where can people find out more about you and where can they find out where they can stay in touch because I’m sure a lot of listeners are going to have some questions and would love to connect further.

So the easiest is through the organization, Castle of Our Skins, so you can look online, cast Also on Instagram, Facebook, Castle Skins, you can find us there. The Music Inclusion Hub, which I referenced, is linked through our website, so that’s an easy one. Also, it’s musi if you wanted to check that out specifically. And then my contact is also on the Castle of Our Skins and Music Inclusion Hub website so you can reach out to me and get an ASHA report.

We will put all of that in the show notes so that people can just, it’s a click away. Thank you so much, Ashleigh. This has been such a wonderful conversation for me, I know, but also I’m sure everybody who’s listening is just delighted by your background and what you’re doing currently and to your initiatives for the future. It’s so exciting. So thank you.

Thank you.