Here are just a few Black performers who changed the course of classical music… and continue to inspire us today!

It’s been a strange, difficult year for the music world, which is all the more reason to celebrate musical excellence.

Baldwin’s association with singers Elly Ameling, Jessye Norman, José van Dam, Teresa Berganza, Mady Mesplé, and above all, Gérard Souzay, defines the history of German art song performance in the second half of the twentieth century.

On a sweltering summer evening in the early 1990s, Jessye Norman visited the Chicago area for an intimate recital at Ravinia. Host Larry Johnson recalls the singular concert experience.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera will hold a tribute to Jessye Norman on Nov. 24 that celebrates the life and career of the late soprano. Latonia Moore, Eric Owens, Lise Davidsen, J’Nai Bridges and Leah Hawkins are scheduled to perform, the company said Wednesday, along with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, pianist Mark Markham, composer/pianist Damien Sneed, …

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — The hometown of renowned opera star Jessye Norman is continuing four days of honoring her life. Augusta, Georgia, officials plan on Friday to name the street outside the arts school Norman opened in 2003 after her.

WFMT is deeply saddened to learn that soprano Jessye Norman has died at age 74. As a tribute to her inspiring life and career, we are re-sharing this story from May 19, 2014, when Ms. Norman herself visited WFMT, treating audiences to an hour of music and conversation with host Kerry Frumkin and even reading an excerpt from her memoir.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessye Norman, the renowned international opera star whose passionate soprano voice won her four Grammy Awards and the National Medal of Arts, has died, according to family spokesperson Gwendolyn Quinn. She was 74. A statement released to The Associated Press on Monday said Norman died at 7:54 a.m. EDT from septic shock and multi-organ failure secondary …

Learn how Lawrence Brownlee, hailed as one of the world’s leading tenors, is developing new works that respond to issues facing men of color today.

As classical organizations seek to bring more newcomers to the concert hall, have traditions of audience silence worn out their welcome?

In 2009, composer Laura Karpman unveiled a new work, Ask Your Mama, during Carnegie Hall’s HONOR! Festival that celebrated African American music and culture. Inspired by Langston Hughes’s poem of the same name, Ask Your Mama is a multimedia exploration of the black experience. But Karpman herself is not black. “I’m a white composer, living in white privilege, setting the …

African-American spirituals are not just a cornerstone of the American choral tradition, they have impacted countless genres of music heard everywhere from saloons to symphony halls. Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” borrows heavily from African-American musical traditions and spirituals in particular. The composer once said: “I am convinced that the future music of this …