Performance Calendar

This seasoned and stirring acoustic trio, hailing from Argentina, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica, bring their long careers and rich, diverse musical backgrounds to this afternoon of gorgeous covers and originals. Performing contemporary Latin jazz standards, and originals by Emmy- and Grammy-winning film and television composer Ragazzi, the trio skillfully and beautifully navigates a moving range of emotions, moods, and styles.

Discover, witness, and revel in the joy of cultural conversation as West and East African percussion styles come together. Malian culture bearer and virtuoso of the balafon Balla Kouyaté teams with Mozambican timbila star, percussionist, and educator Matchume Zango for an afternoon of high-energy music showcasing time-honored xylophone traditions with a contemporary twist.

Join velvet-voiced singer Jonathan Gramling to discover the threads that link reggae, gospel, soul, and jazz. With a lineup of remixes, mashups, originals, and genre-bending covers, this group deftly and joyfully weaves a story of soul music's evolution across styles, time, and culture. 

Exploring faith and spirituality through music, Castle of our Skins presents an afternoon of African American spirituals, from classics to those reimagined. Blending voice, strings, and piano, foundational spirituals published by H.T. Burleigh, James Weldon Johnson, and R. Nathaniel Dett will be woven through reimagined contemporary works by such composers as Shawn Okphebelo, Adolphus Hailstork, and Jessie Montgomery. 

Stringfest programs give string students the opportunity to learn from and perform alongside acclaimed professional musicians. The featured artists perform, then the young players join them for unforgettable side-by-side selections for the whole group. This fall, the internationally renowned Borromeo Quartet returns to Stringfest to lead an all-Beethoven program, mentoring young players from Boston String Academy. Hear fledgling virtuosos join with distinguished musicians as Beethoven's immortal music reaches across cultures and generations in this powerful Stringfest concert. 

The cello speaks—perhaps more than any other orchestral instrument—in a way that feels human. Its range overlaps with the human voice, players share space with and embrace their instrument, and its warm, resonant sound expresses bittersweet emotions—longing, melancholy, grief—with authenticity and weight. Conducted by Eugene Friesen, the orchestra honors the 150th birthday of cellist and humanitarian Pablo Casals with arrangements of works by Casals, Villa-Lobos, and other beloved favorites

From Istanbul to Symphony Hall, Pelin Su Yavuz is reimagining and reaffirming what a 19-year-old can do. A Boston Calling headliner and a Boston Pops performer, she's an artist you need to experience live.

At a time in which the connective power of art has never been more essential, flamenco duo Triana Maciel and Nino de los Reyes bring us PerpetuARTE, an all-new program offering a full-throated endorsement of creativity, humanity, authenticity, passion, and interdependence.  

Powerhouse vocalist Nadia Washington and her longstanding Quartet share an afternoon of jazzy holiday favorites. Warm up your December with their reimagined Christmas classics and other wintery tunes. 

A musician, dancer, and cultural historian, Jorge Santiago Arce has celebrated the African roots of Puerto Rican traditions and shared them with audiences of all backgrounds. In this Stringfest performance, Arce teams with young strings players from across Boston to perform Puerto Rican and Latin American folk songs, arranged for strings and percussion. Don't miss this joyful day of discovery, connection, and cultural exchange. 

From Havana's conservatories to stages across the Americas, Ahmed Alom is a rising force with a rousing vision. Transforming the piano into a crucible where Cuban rhythm, jazz intuition, and improvisational fire collide in real time, he's a must-hear artist.

When spoken word and jazz unite, when voice and saxophone speak in dialogue and as one: what happens? An afternoon of alchemical artistry. Amanda Shea—an artist at the intersection of poetry, music, social justice, and culture—brings a dynamic creative voice that blends spoken word with a wide range of musical styles. Tim Hall is a saxophonist (and spoken word artist), an educator, a session musician, and a bandleader: he's a cultural connector who, in his many roles, lifts others up in support and celebration. 

Singer/songwriter Débo Ray creates contemporary R&B music that takes inspiration from soul, jazz, gospel, Latin, and hip hop. This versatile vocalist infuses covers and originals with storytelling, nuance, and fearless originality.

In a Vivo Performing Arts debut not to be missed, Boston-based pianist Yoko Miwa arrives at Neighborhood Arts with her celebrated trio bringing their signature clarity, strength, and poetry. From luminous joy to notes that fall and shimmer like rain or teardrops, Miwa is renowned around the world for giving each piece its own indelible landscape of emotion. 

Boston's Modern Connections Collective presents excerpts from four powerful works by choreographer and founder Jenny Oliver. Rooted in moments of empowerment and guided by themes of connection, these pieces invite audiences to come together as stories of relationship and resilience unfold through the language of movement. 

Refresh the spirit and feel the brisk, gleeful embrace of Celtic and American folk music with fiddler Maura Shawn Scanlon and guitarist Conor Hearn, as the duo Rakish, and Rasa String Quartet. Scanlon, a virtuoso fiddler as well as an acclaimed classical violinist, is a member of both ensembles, and all the musicians on stage play everything—programs often include chamber music, pop covers, originals, and traditional music—with elegance, spontaneity, and style. 

Experience the alchemy that unfolds when traditional and contemporary Brazilian music styles meet jazz in this must-see performance by the Fernando Brandão Quartet. Choros, bossas, sambas, and more are the canvas for Brandão and his quartet's vibrant improvisations in this exhilarating afternoon of global connections. 

Gregory Groover's music is rooted in the idea of community, connectedness, and, as he put it in an interview, "the idea that sound could move people closer to something greater than themselves." Groover, whose previous work includes reimagining African American spirituals and an album of love songs and songs of people he loves, brings the personal and the historical together in his newest program. In North to Boston, he's inspired by the stories of members of his home church—people he's known for years—who migrated to Boston between World War II and the 1980s. 

A Berklee Global Jazz Institute graduate and Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Ambassador, vocalist and songwriter Manuela Sánchez Goubert draws on the rich rhythms of South American folk music, weaving them into the language of contemporary jazz. Singing in Spanish and Portuguese, she leads her ensemble with bold imagination and boundary defying originality. Free and open to all!

Zambra Collective creates music through improvisation, deep listening, and shared creative language. The award-winning quintet draws its creativity from expansive musical practices rooted in flamenco, Romani, Persian classical, Indian, Catalan, and jazz traditions. Winners of the 2025 Detroit Jazz Festival Call for New Works Award, Zambra’s performances invite listeners into intimate sonic spaces of connection, curiosity, trust, discovery, and sisterhood.

As part of his Roxbury Artist-in-Residence program, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins joins trumpeter Jason Palmer for a free neighborhood performance. The concert features the premiere of a song Wilkins will create inspired by Boston history and culture. 

A beloved cultural leader in Boston, Veronica Robles is known for her powerful voice, joyful stage presence, and dedication to sharing the richness of Latin American music and dance. Not only is this an uplifting afternoon rife with rhythm, color and celebration, it's also an opportunity to experience the spirit and energy of mariachi with community. 

Singer-songwriter Alisa Amador makes her Vivo Performing Arts debut as a headliner with this special evening Neighborhood Arts concert. In a spellbinding set that bridges English and Spanish, Amador creates beautiful, lush, and layered compositions that showcase her pure, crystalline voice. Her music is infused with discovery, hope, and affirmation, offering a revelatory meditation on triumph and loss, endings and beginnings, identity and belonging. 

This event takes place in June, 2027! Dominican-born pianist Carlos Vargas, praised for his "striking energy and uncompromising honesty," joins the award-winning Rasa String Quartet for an afternoon of chamber music filled with vitality and expressive depth. Free and open to all!