Ashleigh Gordon

Violist, Co-founder and Artistic/Executive Director of Castle of our Skins

Violist Ashleigh Gordon is the co-founder and artistic/executive director of Castle of our Skins—a music initiative in Boston that celebrates Black artistry in music. Violist Ashleigh Gordon and pianist Anthony R. Green were students at the New England Conservatory of Music and were frustrated by the lack of representation of Black voices in classical music. So, in 2013, they co-founded the not-for-profit Castle of our Skins. Ashleigh Gordon is the organization’s artistic and executive director as well as violist who performs in many of the concerts. From its successful first outing, “Castle of our Skins”—the name comes from a poem by Nikki Giovanni—has grown into a distinguished concert and music education series with creative programming that weaves music with visual art, dance, history, and storytelling.  In this podcast, Gordon talks about the organization’s founding, how its mission has evolved and expanded throughout the years, the centrality of interdisciplinary work and partnerships to its programming, and how, as a Black arts organization, Castle of our Skins is moving forward through “a health pandemic and a racial pandemic.”