2022-2023 season

upcoming

Spirit: musiConnect's Ensemble Concert

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In 2022, Castle of Our Skins completed a month-long residency at musiConnects, learning and celebrating the life and artistry of Langston Hughes. Students experimented with musicalizing Hughes' already jazzy-style of expression. The words and sounds they created were shared with a composer Joi Harper who created an original work for soprano, piano and student strings. Spirit, mC's spring concert, will feature the world premiere of Harper's piece, Aspirations and Sorrows.

Sunday March 26, 2023, 2:30pm; St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain
​Castle of our Skins is a Neighborhood Artist

Black student union intercollegiate FESTIVAL

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Castle of Our Skins' BSU Intercollegiate Festival is the second iteration of our 2022 BSU Fellowship. This year we welcome musicians from Black Student Unions at select Boston-area conservatories to collaborate and create, presenting opportunities to build a network of peers beyond institutional affiliation; a network informed by identity, experience, and aspiration.  
To conclude the Festival, students will co-curate and present a final concert around the theme of Black Futures, featuring works by living Black composers.
 
April 1, 2023, 7:00pm | FREE @ Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre Martin Hall

It must all be done in darkness...

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It Must All Be Done In Darkness... is an intimate and immersive experience centered on Harriet Jacobs. A writer, abolitionist, and survivor, Jacobs spent seven years in isolation before escaping to Massachusetts and earning her freedom. Through film, movement, audience participation, and music, this world premiere opera celebrates Jacobs and her story of perseverance. A story that begs for us to learn, grow, and heal.

This project was created by Anthony R. Green, with support from the Berlin University of the Arts, Boston Cultural Council, Castle of our Skins, and the ancestors.
April 14, 2023, 7:00pm* | Pay-What-You-Like 
April 15, 2023, 4:30 & 8pm | $20/$15/$8 @ Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre

*followed by post-performance talk-back

time is an impatient thing

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The concept of time being impatient touches on each piece of this program in a distinctly unique way, from the asymmetrical and ever-shifting to the mysterious and provocative. Featuring a world premiere work by Allison Loggins-Hull written in honor of our 10th anniversary featuring coloratura soprano Dr. Louise Toppin.
 
May 17, 2023, 7:30pm @ Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

#BCMC 3.0

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Composers who identify as Black and part of the African diaspora were challenged to compose 30-second pieces for soprano and/or cello!
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Tune in this June (Black Music Month!) on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok for each of the 18 world premieres.

​For MORE INFO, please visit our BIBA Blog

2022-2023 ​SHIRLEY GRAHAM DU BOIS CREATIVE IN RESIDENCE

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The Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative in Residency program is generously funded by donors Arlene and Larry Dunn and invites creative artists to collaborate in various ways with COOS throughout the season.
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Meet our 2022-2023 Creative in Residence: Angel C. Dye

Celebrating Black Artistry Through Music

latest happenings

Massq Ball 2022 origin - the massq ball

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The MassQ Ball will feature the diverse artistic expressions of and for Boston’s communities of color. A space for connection and healing, this intergenerational, cross-cultural exhibition of the arts asks the question “If we, together, could author our own creation story, what would we create?

MassQ Ball 2022: Origin is co-produced by Castle of our Skins, visual artist Daniel Callahan of Create & Record, and the Arnold Arboretum. A series of lectures, panels, and interactive experiences designed to deepen our collective understanding, MassQ Ball 2022: Origin will culminate in a final, large-scale celebration called MassQ Ball that will take place on July 9, 2022, at the Arboretum.
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July 9, 2022, 2:00-7:00pm @ The Arnold Arboretum
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Learn more about MassQ Ball 2022: Origin at MassQBall.com
MassQ Ball 2022: Origin Press Release
File Size: 243 kb
File Type: pdf
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For black people

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Featuring the world premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain's Music for Black People as part of Celebrity Series of Boston's Solo(s) Together project. Rescheduled due to COVID-19. FREE!
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September 10, 2022, 3:00pm @ Arlington Street Church
September 22, 2022, 4:00pm Digital Premiere
​Castle of our Skins is a Neighborhood Artist

Walker at 100

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In collaboration with violinist and composer Gregory Walker, Castle of our Skins is honored to present lectures, master classes and performances centering Black artistry and the life and works of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer George Walker. 

October 3, 2022, 2:30pm @ ​Boston University College of Fine Arts Marshall Room
October 4, 2022, 9:30am @ Boston Univestiy College of Fine Arts Room 171
October 5, 2022, 2:30pm @ Boston University College of Fine Arts Marshall Room
October 7, 2022, 8:00pm @ Boston University College of Fine Arts Concert Hall and streaming on YouTube.

Hardened beauty

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Featuring music by Derrick Skye, Yaz Lancaster and world premieres by Bongani Ndodana-Breen and Renée C. Baker, Hardened Beauty showcases works that touch on global identities, histories, stories, and subjects that are both personal and universal. 
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October 23, 2022, 1:30pm @ ​Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Love Affects

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A reprise of our first concert EVER, Love Affects, pairs music with text to explore how love influences our sense of self, humanity, heritage, and future. Co-curated with Shirley Graham du Bois Creative in Residence Angel C. Dye.

November 17, 2022, 6:30pm @ The Boston Athenaeum
November 18, 2022, 7:00pm @ The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, presented by 5 Boroughs Music Festival
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For Black People

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Featuring solo and chamber music works for flute, cello, soprano and piano by Tania León, Andre Myers, Zenobia Powell Perry, Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, Undine Smith Moore, and Daniel Bernard Roumain. 
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November 27, 2022, 3:00pm @ Linde Center for Music and Learning, Lenox/Stockbridge, MA

Her Phantom happiness: Anthony R. green portrait concert

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Castle of our Skins is excited to be back in residence at the Longy School of Music of Bard College! As part of our fourth annual residency, we will feature an immersive three-day residency focused on the music of Anthony R. Green complete with lectures, master classes, open rehearsals and concerts culminating in our portrait concert: Her Phantom Happiness.
​December 9, 2022, 8:00pm @ Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Castle of our Skins is an Ensemble in Residence at the Longy School of Music at Bard College.

a little history

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A Little History is a fun-filled interactive educational workshop for solo narrating violist and kids. The work highlights the importance of such historic figures as Margaret Bonds, Garrett Morgan, Angela Davis, President Barack Obama and more. Young elementary students are encouraged to get up and move, sing, clap, invent, and play make-believe as they learn about these historic figures.
Sunday February 12, 2023, 11:00-11:30AM & 2:00-2:30PM @ Boston Children's Museum 

Play Songs & Games

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The songs and games we played as children were where we learned cultural stories and understood the rhythms and textures of our world. Come join Castle of our Skin in play as we remember, celebrate, learn, and relearn Afro-American and Caribbean play songs and games! ​

​Friday February 24, 2023, 2:00-3:00pm @ The Children’s Library at the Central Library in Copley Square

A Spiritual Fantasy

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A Spiritual Fantasy highlights African American composers who had a woven connection with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and William Grant Still: Clarence Cameron White was born five years after Coleridge-Taylor and later studied with him; Florence Price was born six years before Grant Still and grew up as neighbors in Arkansas; Frederick Tillis was born the same year audiences first heard Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony. All of the composers were greatly influenced by a truly unique expression of African American strength, resilience, and community: the Negro Spiritual. A Spiritual Fantasy explores these themes in music, knowing the same sense of strength, resilience, and community were pivotal forces that inspired civil rights activist Octavius Catto, whose story is told in the BSO's later performance of The Passion of Octavius Catto. ​

Saturday March 4, 2023, 6:00-7:00pm @ Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Project STEP concert at rockport music

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Project STEP students will play the premiere of Anthony R. Green's Chorale alongside a new edition of Catto's Courage with members of Castle of Our Skins quartet. Chorale is a sonic celebration of stories of Black feminist resistance of the 19th and early 20th centuries and Catto's Courage honors the bravery of Philadelphian activist Octavius Catto. ​

Sunday March 12, 2023, 3:00pm @ Rockport Music Shalin Liu Performance Center

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