Performances + Events
Thirteen years after founding Castle of our Skins, New England Conservatory alumni Ashleigh Gordon ’08 MM and Anthony Green ’08 MM have prepared the organization to reclaim a vital artistic space in Boston and further empower Black artists far beyond.
In mid-May, the nonprofit organization, which “centers Black arts, culture, and history,” presented a concert at the Goethe Institut called The Castle We Built, featuring solo and duo performances by Gordon, a violist, and Green, a composer and pianist. The event served as a fundraiser for CooS as the organization prepares to move next year into a permanent home and enter a new phase. Since its founding in 2013, Castle of our Skins has operated out of coffeeshops, apartments, coworking spaces, and other nonpermanent homes.
The Castle We Built featured performances of works by Ed Bland and Jeffrey Mumford — whose music introduced Green and Gordon, respectively, to the world of Black composers — alongside premieres of works by Green and Adolphus Hailstork and miniatures commissioned through CooS’ Black Composer Miniature Challenge, a COVID initiative that invited African diasporic composers from around the world to write 30-second miniatures for various instrument pairings.
The May 16 program at the Goethe Institut was a celebration of Castle of our Skins’ work to date and the mission that continues as Gordon leaves her artistic directorship for an emeritus role. Green has served as associate director emeritus since the end of the 2022–2023 CooS season.
“The organization, as an adolescent at this stage, needs to move out on its own,” Gordon explained, talking about the transition ahead.
“It’s in a place where I would never have imagined it being,” Green said.
Castle of our Skins will welcome new co-curators in music and interdisciplinary arts to its leadership and will move in the 2027–2028 season into its permanent home at 566 Columbus Ave., in Boston’s Lower Roxbury/South End. Secured from the City of Boston for $1 in 2024, the property is the former site of the Harriet Tubman House. It’s an area of “fertileness and hope,” Gordon said, and also holds the “lived memory of decline.”
“Given the work that we do,” she said, “the history is really important.” The South End is home to “the historic jazz corridor,” CooS has pointed out. It’s where Dr. Martin Luther King once lived and later led a march, where the Hi-Hat jazz club once stood and where Wally’s Café (originally the Paradise) still does. “There’s a level of intentionality and history I’m excited for the organization to steward,” Gordon said, calling Castle of our Skins’ move into its new home a “reclamation.”
The new location will include an intimate venue and home for Black artistry named Harriet Tubman Hall, where CooS’ signature mix of concerts and educational workshops will be presented alongside the work of other mission-aligned creatives.
“We envision our new home to be a welcoming space for education, creative play, and community building around Black culture, history, and arts,” Gordon said. “We need a strong stake in the ground.”
Learn more about Castle of our Skins.
