CBMR Part Two: Perfect Guidance

During our research week, Ashe and I (along with the other grant recipient Kirk Smith) received guidance from the amazingly well-informed staff. Particularly helpful to us were Melanie Zeck and Janet Harper. Both of them were always available to give us information, whether it was a name of a performer or composer that we should look into, books and scholars to explore as another avenue of inspiration, or cultural events throughout the great city of Chicago. One of these events was an exhibit of the paintings of Archibald Motley.

Just like President Barack Obama, Archibald J. Motley Jr. (1891 - 1981), was of a mixed racial makeup that included direct African and European backgrounds. He grew up with his family in a  quiet middle class neighborhood in Chicago that did not emphasize racial disparities. Consequently, throughout his life he never identified as with any racial label, but used his art to delve deeper into racial stereotypes and the politics of skin tone. Of these works, the portraits of mixed race women were of a particular focus for him.

During his time, labels such as "octoroon" or "quadroon" or "mulatto" were used in abundance, even though it was difficult to exactly determine these qualities simply by looking at skin. Motley's portraits embodied this message, along with other piercing critics regarding race in the United States of America. Ashe and I were so moved by this exhibition that we decided to base Castle of our Skins's next Call for Proposals on works of visual art by Black artists.

Other suggestions (just to mention a few out of many, including the Helen Walker-Hill books mentioned in the previous post) were the music of Akin Euba and Fred Onovwerosuoke. Both still living, these composers represent their native African countries very well in their clever, moving music. The suggestion of these composers has lead me to look into the music of other African composers, like Fela Sowande and Samuel Ekpe Akpabot and Halim El-Dabh. So much good music to discover!

On a final note, doing this research has uncovered to me how much improper documentation exists for Black composers. I often came across contradictory birth dates, contradictory or missing death dates, contradictory titles and instrumentations, and many pieces that have been lost. One such death date gave Ashe and me a bit of a pause. We came across some pieces by Dr. Lettie Beckon Alston that are perfect for the COOS Collective - the flexible ensemble that is a part of our organization. In our search for her contact information, we came across the news that she had passed away, yet online source after online source did not mention this (and they still do not). She passed away in 2014. Luckily for us and the world, she left behind some wonderful music.

(Stay tuned for part 3!, and We'd like to hear from YOU!)

CBMR Part One: Beautiful Black Women

Castle ofour Skins was honored to receive a Travel-to-the-Collections grant from the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) in Chicago. As a result, co-artistic directors Ashleigh Gordon and I (Anthony Green) spent a week immersing ourselves in the massive collection of scores, audio, magazines, books, newspaper clippings, primary and secondary sources, and other material related to composers, performers, musicologists, and other music lovers who identify as Black or work with artists who identify as Black. Over the course of the week, Ashe and I had an initial objective to collect repertoire to add to a database of possible chamber works that can be programmed during the upcoming COOS seasons. After day one, however, we knew that other objectives would be inevitably added to our research, and this week was simply not long enough to 100% achieve any of them. But we would give it the old college try!

While Ashe was busy looking up repertoire (and coming across some hits and misses), I organically gravitated towards focusing on Black female composers. This inclination was mainly because of books by Helen Walker-Hill, books of which I was not aware until this research period. This line of focus lead me to discover two things: 1) Helen Walker-Hill was affiliated with a school that I attended, and 2) that same school in its past had a celebration of Black (mostly classical) music in its history, but it does not anymore. This celebration happened in February, however, the institute referred to February as Black Awareness Month. One such celebration included a performance by the legendary Kathleen Battle. I was 11 years too late to witness this.

This line of research also lead me quickly to believe that I was grossly unware of about 90% of the Black women composers about whom I read. Consequently, I constructed a list of names in a word document, along with (very light) notes and birth/death dates. This list includes over 200 names. My favorite part of this list is that some of the names I added to it were names I came across before Ms. Walker-Hill had her chance. Ms. Walker-Hill left this earth suddenly on August 8, 2013. At this time, however, there was not any update to any of her books or research to include composers like Renee’ Baker, SerenaCreary, Pamela Z, and Nailah Nombeko, to name a few. It is good to know that her line of work will continue to have a need, and her legacy will continue as this scholarship develops.

(Stay tuned for part 2!, and We'd like to hear from YOU!)