Hello BIBA fans! In our last #BCMC month BIBA blog, we have yet another VLOG! This time, check out a conversation with Brittany J. Green, a rising-star composer, currently working on a Ph. D. degree at Duke University! If you've enjoyed these #BCMC Blogs, be sure to share them with friends and family, and spread the word that the scores for these incredible miniatures are now available to purchase as a digital download from the Castle of our Skins store! Check them out HERE!
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Hey BIBA fans! Today's BIBA is a composer chat featuring two #BCMC composers, Emerson Sudbury and Forbes Graham! Click below to listen/watch and learn more about their music, their lives, and their miniatures! We hope you enjoy the conversation, and for those who tuned into the Instagram live chat with Shannon Sea and Monthati Masebe - thank you so much! For those who could not make it, don't worry! It's archived on our instagram account, @castleskins! Next week's BIBA will be our last in this #BCMC month series, and that will be a chat with the incredible Brittany J. Green! #BCMC Month is STILL GOING STRONG here at Castle of our Skins, and it's always a joy to revisit these miniatures. We learn something every time we hear them, and we love sharing that joy with you! With that, we have some surprises in store! Next week's BIBA (most likely posting on Wednesday or Thursday) will be a VLOG featuring composer/performer/visual artist Forbes Graham and the incredible composer/musician/arts administrator Emerson Sudbury! Additionally, Castle of our Skins will host an INSTAGRAM LIVE CHAT with Shannon Sea and Monthati Masebe!! This will happen May 24th (this coming Monday!) at 1:30PM Eastern time! To attend, just follow @castleskins on Instagram, and tune in then! In the meantime, enjoy the last set of 6 miniatures below! This particular miniature is solidly within Nash's voice, which mixes R&B, Gospel, and Soul with classical, counterpoint, and contemporary sounds. Love the build-up in this miniature! It was so great to receive this miniature from such a powerhouse composer! This Wagnerian miniature completely stuns and explodes! Happy 80th birthday, Adolphus Hailstork! This poetic, Haiku-esque miniature has a realistic element with the electronics, and a melodic commentary from the instruments that speaks volumes in its simplicity. What does it say to you? This curious exploration miniature has multiple levels : the viola has moments of instability with pitch, the pianist has moments of rhythmic instability, yet there is this insistence that dominates! Bravo! This lite, curious miniature references medieval, romantic, classical, and contemporary styles! Above all this, however, there is a joie-de-vivre and a humor that brightens the soul! Where Charles Murrell's miniature referenced medieval music, Violaceous fits solidly within the style, yet is the most rhythmically complex of the set. Love the caccia elements here. Remember to catch a VLOG next week in this space, and to enter our Instagram space on Monday at 1:30PM for a LIVE chat with two of our #BCMC composers, Shannon Sea and Monthati Masebe!
May has been FULL of opportunities from Castle of our Skins! We EXTENDED OUR DEADLINE FOR THE SHIRLEY GRAHAM DU BOIS CREATIVE-IN-RESIDENCE! (If you want to apply, be sure to do so by next week, and tell your friends!) We also are looking for children 10 and under to apply for our digital summer camp, and we have offered a direct way to reach out to us for collaborative ideas! With that, we are POSTPONING the release of our second #BCMC, and we'll have a due date in July! Stay tuned for the official announcement NEXT MONTH! In the meantime, please enjoy the next set of 6 miniatures by Shannon Sea, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Kevin Madison, Brian Raphael Nabors, Forbes Graham, and Brittany J. Green! Click below! In this miniature character study for solo viola, Shannon Sea composes a melody that is full of insistence. It has a subtle complexity that reveals itself on repeated listenings (hint hint!). In this miniature journey, there is a glance. It is perhaps represented by the viola's extensions. There is also a blur. The frustration of the blur along with its intrusive nature is represented in the piano. The lengthiest of our miniatures, this penetrative piece also incorporates spoken word mixed with viola accompaniment. The practice mute informs the timbral world the most. What a FUN miniature! Brian is no stranger to the COOS fam, having been composer-in-residence from 2018 - 2019! His contemporary-tonal-atonal seamless blending is evident here! Did you ever think 30 seconds would be enough time to compose a work where two personalities are in dialogue with each other? Well ... it is! And Forbes has proven it!! Can you hear the dialogue? Brittany and Anthony have the same last name, and this video was released on Anthony's birthday!! The harmonies here drop in all the right places, and the fixed audio pillow is FIRE! #BCMC Month on BIBA will continue with our next post that will complete the 18 submissions. What will come afterwards? Well ... you'll have to wait and find out!
Last year, right around this time, co-founders Anthony R. Green and Ashleigh Gordon came up with a number of ideas to keep up our presence throughout this period of being home, a period to which many of us have grown oddly accustomed (out of necessity). One of these ideas ended up taking on a life we did not expect at all ... which brings us to now! This month, we're celebrating our Black Composer Miniature Challenge! Released almost 1 year exactly today, the #BCMC in its first iteration received submissions from 18 incredible composers and creative musicians! A year out, Castle of our Skins has released a digital anthology of these pieces, which is available for purchase today!! Interested in purchasing? Please CLICK HERE to purchase this volume from our web store! Missed the pieces from last year? That's okay! The miniature performances are available on our Instagram, website, and will be featured here this month! As each piece is between 30 to 50 seconds, each piece is a gem that can be experienced quickly! The first 6 to be featured are Eddie Conrad, Juwon Ogungbe, Kathryn Patricia Cobbler, Monthati Masebe, Yaz Lancaster, and Mokale Koapeng! The youngest of the composers, Eddy's Tom Bombadil is a miniature about a Lord of the Rings character of the same name! It is happy, bright, and melodious! A joy to play! This particular miniature is about a wedding tradition in Nigeria! What I love about this delightful gem is seamless transition to another key, symbolic of love's journey! The first of the solo viola miniatures, A Home Called 'Wander' incorporates spoken word as well. Ashe and Kathryn had a wonderful exchange in developing this miniature! This clever gem begins with the piano instruction to play with the index fingers, and eventually accelerate to the end! The rhythms here are fascinating ... and so surprising! Another solo viola miniature, Ashe is requested to sing - a color and a layer that adds another surprising dimension to this short yet poignant journey! Pholoso means "salvation", and this is the first of the gems in our series that has a bold, powerful character. It excites, and hopefully inspires the desire to enact justice and positive social change! Be sure to tune in next week for 6 more #BCMC miniatures with 6 reviews ... and an official announcement of our SECOND #BCMC, with works due in June! And if you want to buy some music after hearing, seeing, and reading about these 6 works above, be sure to CLICK HERE!
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April 2024
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