On Sunday March 8 at Wellesley College‘s Jewett Auditorium, Castle of Our Skins presented a performance lecture of Derrick Skye’s “American Mirror” String Quartet that engaged audiences in cross-cultural music traditions. Part of the Wellesley College Concert Series, the performance involved audience participation, with attendees singing and clapping to support the musicians.
Castle of Our Skins, based in greater Boston, celebrates Black artistry through concerts and education.
The event began with an introduction of Derrick Skye’s “American Mirror” by co-founder, artistic director, and violist of Castle of Our Skins Ashleigh Gordon, followed by guided demonstrations of different ornamentations and rhythms used in the two-part piece.
Skye is a Black composer and musician known for integrating music traditions across cultures into his works. He passionately believes that music is a doorway to understanding other cultures and different ways of living. “American Mirror” reflects the coming together of cultures in our society, which consists of many generations and descendants of refugees, immigrants and enslaved people, and how intercultural collaborations are essential to the well being of American society. The piece draws inspiration from West African, Eastern European, Indian, and Middle Eastern music traditions as well as American genres such as gospel, jazz, and Appalachian folk music.
The piece is divided into two parts, with the first featuring Bulgarian choral influences. Gordon invited the audience to softly hum in the first part and played the exact notes to hum on her viola. She also pointed out how the cellist Francesca uses her instrument as a percussive instrument, mimicking the sounds of various hand drums like the tabla, congo, or jembe. The quartet played small sections to allow the audience to practice their participation, then returned to talking about the piece.
The second part incorporated Indian rhythmic structures, like Adi Tala, an eight-beat cycle from South Indian classical music with specific hand gestures and claps to mark time. Gordon led a live demonstration of these gestures, followed by the string quartet playing the section where the claps take place.
“We will mark the shape of the adita with our hands. So it’s a shared cultural practice highlighted in the piece all about communities coming together, cultures coming together. The Adi Tala is counted with four beats, Lahu, meaning on the fingers, and two Dru tons, which are clap and away.”
Throughout her lecture, Gordon highlighted the different rhythms and melodies influenced by gospel, folk, and Turkish traditions, followed by short performances of the highlighted sections.
After the audience learned all the musical nuances and participation protocols, the quartet played the two-part piece in its entirety, leaving the audience in awe of how everything they learned from the lecture manifested in a cohesive and mesmerizing performance. The performance was a beautiful fusion of traditional music melodies across the world, truly distinct from your average western classical chamber music performance.
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