Welcome to Getting Curious, I'm Jonathan Vaness, and every week I sit down for a 40-minute

conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.

On today's episode, I'm joined by historian and musicologist Dr. Kira Thurman and

the oldest and co-founder of Castle of Our Skins, Ashley Gordon, where I ask them.

Are we hearing a crescendo of anti-racism and classical music?

Welcome to Getting Curious, this is Jonathan Vaness. I'm so excited for this episode for

several reasons, but one of them is because this is our first episode specifically about

classical music and contemporary music generally, and it's only our third episode ever with two

guests at once, so I'm so excited for that, so without any further ado, welcome. Dr. Kira Thurman,

she is an assistant professor of history and Germanic languages and literature at the University

of Michigan, and we also have Ashley Gordon, who is the co-founder and artistic and executive director,

and violist of Castle of Our Skins, a Boston-based concert and educational series devoted to

celebrating Black History through music. Now, that's just like a baby introduction for both of you,

because you both have like such gorgeous layered stories to tell, but my introduction to you both

was through Twitter and through... Should I say Dr. Kira Thurman, or can I call you Kira? How do you

want me to say? Please call me Kira. Okay, so this was my introduction to Kira, and so basically,

and so this is kind of a double-edged sword in introducing you to this episode and just generally,

because basically the viral Twitter thread is about, you know, is Beethoven, or was Beethoven Black,

and then your kind of thread is about, well, the more important question is here, why don't we know

another musician whose name is George Rich Tower? Yes, George Rich Tower, and I don't

want to spend too much time on whether or not Beethoven was Black, honey, because that's like literally

what the point is, but just wanted to get your perspective of that tweet and how that came to be

...