Celebrating Black Artistry Through Music
upcoming
Belonging
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Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, 2023-2024 Shirley Graham du Bois Creative in Residence Jenny Oliver's work has centered on the questions of "What does it mean to belong to a person, to a place, to yourself?" During this time, artists - more broadly - have also been moving through various stages of creativity and tectonic shifts as they interpret their connection to the topic.
Join us at 3:00PM for participatory, artist curated workshops designed to deepen one’s connection to self, followed at 4:00PM by an immersive mix of music, dance, and spoken word performances. Light refreshments will be provided.
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As I Heard When I was Young
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As I heard when I was young features chamber music with African roots and Pan African ideals. Featuring works by South African composers Monthati Masebe and Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Ugandan composer Justinian Tamasuza, and American composers Derrick Skye & Brian Raphael Nabors, this program centers concepts of unity, solidarity, and connections across the African diaspora.
Saturday, December 2, 2023, 3:00pm @ Bethel A.M.E. Church, JP
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#BCMC 4.0
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For our 4th Black Composer Miniature Challenge, we are inviting composers who identify as Black and part of the African diaspora to compose 30 to 60-second piece for solo saxophone inspired by Indigenous themes, stories, and symbols curated by our 2023-2024 Shirley Graham du Bois Creative in Residence Jenny Oliver. Works that meet the challenge will be choreographed and danced by Jenny and receive a video world premiere in our annual BCMC digital festival in June 2024!
Call for Scores begins December 4, 2023
Digital festival begins June 1st, 2024 And check out Bahué's sister project to the BCMC: The Latinx Composer Miniature Challenge! We’re excited to share platforms, create greater visibility of the global majority, and build even stronger networks of diverse creatives! |
Embodyment
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Castle of our Skins' third annual BSU Intercollegiate Fellowship welcomes 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 fellowship, students will co-curate and present a final concert around the theme of EmBODYment featuring works by African diasporic composers. Call for applications begins October 2023.
The Fellowship will take place late January-early February, 2024 |
Edutainment Workshop Series
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Castle of our Skins presents a series of interactive, intergenerational, educational programs designed for youth and families. All programs highlight Black history, culture, music, and arts in our signature mix of education and entertainment.
Voices of Black Madonna - Saturday, January 27, 2024. 12:30-1:30pm Play Songs & Games - Saturday, March 9, 2024, 12:30-1:00pm & 1:00-1:30pm The Flea and the Fly - Saturday, May 11, 2024, 12:30-12:50pm & 1:00-1:20pm Portraits of Spirituals - Saturday, June 15, 2024, 12:30-1:30pm
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Love & Justice
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Ensemble-in-Residence Castle of our Skins returns to the Longy School of Music of Bard College for an immersive three-day residency focused on the music of Adolphus Hailstork. Our fifth residency, we are excited to team up with Hailstork to work with students in master classes, classroom visits, and affinity spaces, and present a capstone portrait concert featuring chamber music from Hailstork's rich body of work.
Including a pre-concert talk from 7:00-7:45pm and post-concert reception.
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Love & Justice
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Castle of our Skins returns to the Brattleboro Music Center for a day-long celebration of composer Adolphus Hailstork complete with masterclasses, discussions, and a capstone portrait concert featuring chamber music from Hailstork's rich body of work.
Saturday, March 30, 2023, 7:00pm @ Brattleboro Music Center, Brattleboro, VT
Including a pre-concert talk from 6:15-6:45pm. 
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The Wanderer's Tethering
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The Wanderer’s Tethering is a celebration of Black folk songs, Black women in America, and the layered and multifaceted experience of people belonging to the Black diaspora. The program features a Boston Lyric Opera commissioned work, "The Wanderer’s Tethering," which combines poetry by Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola and music by composer, vocalist, and multimedia artist Mason Bynes; alongside additional selections including Trevor Weston’s “Juba,” Jessie Montgomery’s “Source Code,” and Florence Price’s settings of familiar Negro folk songs for string quartet. Together, they provide a rich tapestry linking the voices of Black creators from the past with those of the present.
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Roots
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Roots explores the origins of inspiration, the anchors from where creativity is born. Castle of our Skins teams up with critically-acclaimed pianist Kyle P. Walker to explore this concept highlighting music from the African diaspora. Color, memory, history, and culture serve as the thread that binds this program featuring a breadth of fresh voices rooted in folk, jazz, classical and contemporary. Including solo and chamber music works by Hannah Kendall, David Baker, Trevor Weston, Shelley Washington and Brian Raphael Nabors.
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African Tales
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African Tales brings together the unique musical and personal stories of composers Bongani Ndondana-Breen, Undine Smith Moore, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Ndodana-Breen's "Safika: Three Tales of African Migration" depicts Black South Africans’ dispossession, migration, and translocation. Moore's "Soweto" calls to mind the horrors of South African apartheid. And through Coleridge-Taylor's piano quintet, we can engage with a personal tale of African roots and Pan-African ideals.
Thursday, May 23, 2024, 7:45pm @ Howard Assembly Room Leeds, United Kingdom
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