"HOMAGE - Chamber Music from the African Continent & Diaspora"

Released on Lontano Records, the album features five chamber music works by Black composers

The Boston-based collective Castle of Our Skins (COOS) recently released its new album, "HOMAGE."

Featuring the COOS Quartet (violinists Gabriela Diaz and Matthew Vera, violist Ashleigh Gordon, and cellist Francesca McNeeley) alongside pianist and musicologist Dr. Samantha Ege, the album presents the work of composers of the African diaspora.

The album's central work is Homage, by Zenobia Powell Perry which draws on inspiration from both African and European soundworlds, and is dedicated to Perry's teacher, the Harlem Renaissance composer William L. Dawson.

Accompanying this, two composers' works reflect on the horrifying consequences of apartheid. Bongani Ndodana-Breen's 2011 work Safika: Three Tales of African Migration expresses the plight of Black South Africans, while Undine Smith Moore's piano trio Soweto traverses her upbringing in the Jim Crow South of America.

Other tracks include Frederick C. Tillis's Spiritual Fantasy No 12, as well as the 1904 work Moorish Dance by the Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

"Though many of the pieces on Homage will be unfamiliar to the majority of classical music lovers, the themes of fortitude, resistance, and hope will resonate deeply," said Samantha Ege. "We are excited for listeners to immerse themselves in the music and take this journey with us."

"I reminded the artists of the storytelling power in these works," said  Ashleigh Gordon of the recording process. "It pushed them to new levels of expressivity and communications as chamber musicians."

To purchase the album, click here.