JAVS Summer 2021

Fresh Faces

Ashleigh Gordon

By Martha Carapetyan

Ashleigh Gordon. Photo credit Bearwalk Photography

Ashleigh Gordon wants to play beautiful music on the viola. She wants you to know about beautiful music, to hear it sung and performed and taught and recorded. She wants you to know the stories of the Black women and men of the African diaspora who have written and are writing music that celebrates life and their own histories and unsung heroes, past and present. And as a violist, working largely within the Western classical tradition, she wants you to know about the multi-faceted experiences of Black musicians and creatives. Gordon grew up playing the violin, starting in fourth grade in her public school. When she spoke with me in a Zoom interview, she remarked “I didn’t know much about music, but I knew I wanted to be in it, surrounded

by it.” Attending the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music as a violinist, she switched to viola in her junior year. Grateful for the incubation of a small conservatory at Baldwin-Wallace, Gordon undertook the stunning trajectory from Telemann Concerto to Bartók Concerto in her final two years, studying with Louise Zeitlin. After graduation from Baldwin-Wallace, Gordon completed her master’s in viola performance as a student of Carol Rodland at the New England Conservatory of Music. Her time at NEC gave her the opportunity to teach widely around the Boston area and to observe and experience the life of a freelance musician in a major metropolitan area. This time in Boston helped Gordon to become clear about the trajectory she didn’t want

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 37, 2021 Online Issue

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