EXPLORING ARACELIS GIRMAY’ S AN EXPERIMENT IN VOICES
B y S c o t t E d w a r d A n d e r s o n
Ancestral Echoes
EXPLORING ARACELIS GIRMAY’ S AN EXPERIMENT IN VOICES
Poet Aracelis Girmay
Nestled on the northern edge of Tanglewood’ s Bernstein campus, the Linde Center for Music and Learning was designed to develop new modes and methods for presenting music and innovative programming. Its intimate performance spaces allow for greater audience participation and engagement than the more traditional venues on the legendary 500-acre campus.
On the afternoon of Saturday, August 9, the Linde Center will host the world premiere of An Experiment in Voices, an innovative multimedia performance that combines poetry, music, and sound design in a unique exploration of ancestry, memory, and motherhood. The performance brings together poet Aracelis Girmay, composer Brittany Green, and violist Ashleigh Gordon in a groundbreaking collaboration that pushes the boundaries of their respective art forms.
An Experiment in Voices promises to be a mesmerizing tapestry of sound, memory, and maternal lineage that weaves together Girmay’ s evocative text, Green’ s innovative musical compositions, and Gordon’ s viola performance. The piece exists in a liminal space between poetry reading, musical performance, and theatrical experience, with five distinct
voices— four spoken parts that will be performed by actors, plus Gordon’ s viola serving as the fifth voice. Audiences will be immersed in a multisensory journey where Girmay’ s poetic excavations of her African American grandmother from Georgia and themes of motherhood, time, and finding nurturing in absence are amplified by Green’ s soundscapes, which incorporate field recordings from Girmay’ s daily life.
The work draws deeply from Girmay’ s exploration of her own lineage, which is a combination of her mother’ s African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican heritage, and her father’ s Eritrean background.“ So much of the work is thinking about mothers and focused on a specific line of mothers, most of whom are no longer living,” she explains.“ I am interested in how we reach or are reached by these mothers and / or the events of their lives.” The piece invites audiences to consider history, speculation, and imagination— examining how currents from past generations continue to flow into the present.
Girmay, the author of three books of poetry, including the black maria( 2016) and a former professor at Hampshire College in Amherst who now teaches at Stanford University, was commissioned to write this work by the Authors Guild Foundation( AGF). Bernard Schwartz, who curates literary programs for AGF, including the annual WIT Literary Festival in the Berkshires each September, invited Girmay as one of four contemporary poets commissioned
to write new performance works. The foundation also supports their first readings or productions, with other commissioned works by Ilya Kaminsky, Alice Oswald, and Danez Smith premiering in different venues across the country.
“ I was terrified by the idea at first,” admits Girmay,“ because it’ s so far from what I’ ve done before— and also super excited for the same reason.”
For this project, Girmay is working with Castle of Our Skins, a Boston-based organization dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music. Artistic director and violist Ashleigh Gordon brings her distinctive musical voice to the collaboration, viewing her instrument as a bridge across time and generations.
“ I wanted to have this ancestral sound that was not like speech as we understand it now,” explains Girmay.“ I was thinking of the viola as a throat— like what it might sound like coming out of the throat of an ancestor, or a person who exists in a different timescape.”
This conception aligns perfectly with Gordon’ s understanding of her instrument.“ The viola is timeless,” Gordon says,“ so it can talk to the ancestor and talk to the young mother character as well.”
Gordon suggested bringing in composer Brittany Green, who specializes in creating music that explores ancestral connections.“ Something I’ ve been really interested in over the past couple of years is using sound to explore ancestry and cross-generational conversations, bringing family histories into the light through sound,” Green explains. Her
96 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE May / June 2025