music

Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” is one of the classic operas that stirs the hearts of music lovers from the first notes. This month, Boston Baroque presents a contemporary spin on the timeless tale of seduction and betrayal, starring award-winning baritone Sidney Outlaw.

On a recent evening, the jolting sounds of string instruments filled a room that was half dance studio, half gym. A quartet stood in the center of a mat-covered section of the space, each member stationed behind a music stand. Three dancers circled the ensemble, cycling through a series of turns and leaps and kicks.

On Friday, April 5, 2024, past and present collided when a sort of incarnation of James Brown took the stage at the Strand Theatre for a concert commemorating the day Brown saved Boston.

On March 29, 2024, Beyoncé released “Cowboy Carter,” a 27-track recording that she claims is not a country genre record, but a new Beyoncé record just “rooted in country.” America is our country. Black music is our music, and country music is our music, too.

“Poetry vs. Hip-Hop” brings to the stage an array of local artists specializing in spoken word, music and comedy before turning over the mic for the headlining performance: a cordial battle between poets and emcees.

African American spirituals were the soundtrack to Everett McCorvey’s upbringing in Montgomery, Alabama. Growing up in a family involved in the civil rights movement, he heard the soulful melodies often — in churches, in anthems and in choirs like the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

The Arlington Jazz Festival will bring the croons of local and international musicians to town next month for the 13th year.

James Weldon Johnson’s “The Crucifixion” is getting a local musical twist this Easter season.

Multi-Tony, Grammy and Emmy award-winner Audra McDonald returned to Symphony Hall Feb. 27 for the seventh time in a decade with Celebrity Series of Boston, accompanied by a full orchestra for the first time.

On a recent Monday afternoon, Andrea Herbert Major was in full director mode at the Roxbury Center for the Performing Arts. Wearing an all-black ensemble with pink pointe shoes to match her Barbie-pink nails, she sat in a wood-floored studio fine-tuning a series of dance routines.

The operatic art form gets a diverse and educational spin in “Celebrating Black Excellence: Opera, Art Song, and the Harlem Renaissance,” a program produced by Opera on Tap.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo started with a dream. Joseph Shabalala, the South African vocal group’s late founder, was on a quest to refine isicathamiya, a musical genre that emerged from apartheid-era mines.