Kyshona

Singer-songwriter Kyshona was a music therapist before she became a public-facing recording artist, and her first songs were written for and about the students and inmates under her care. This element of compassion for the struggling and the marginalized has carried over into her six albums, whose songs seek to tell their stories and uplift their (and our) spirits. Long associated with Nashville’s diverse music culture, Kyshona conveys her messages through a seasoned Americana gumbo of rock, R&B, soul and folk, as evident on her latest release Legacy, which dropped in April. See her perform at 7 p.m. May 9 at Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center, 525 Kumquat Court, Sarasota. The Simply Greek Food Truck will be on site starting at 6 p.m. (941) 894-6469, wslr.org.

Jazz Thursday featuring Synia Carroll and Friends

A leading light of the Sarasota jazz scene since she moved here in 2014, storyteller and educator Synia Carroll brings both of these disciplines into her performances. Imbuing tunes by influences such as Nina Simone, Natalie Cole and Sarah Vaughan into her own soulful vocal style, Carroll and her band will take the stage at Sarasota Art Museum’s (SAM) Michael Klein Plaza from 5:30 to 8 p.m. May 9 in the museum’s latest “Jazz Thursday” event. The entire museum will stay open after hours, with dinner and drinks available in the adjacent Bistro, gallery hours extended to 7 p.m., and the museum store open all night as well. So in between sets, be sure to check out the SAM’s latest exhibitions, Molly Hatch: Amalgam and The Truth of the Night Sky: Anne Patterson and Patrick Harlin, which opened in April. The museum is at 1001 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. (941) 309-4300, sarasotaartmuseum.org.

An Evening With Matt Venuti

In this far-out concert in multiple senses of the term, composer and one-man band Matt Venuti is bringing his immersive audiovisual spectacle AmeriCosmos to Bradenton. A charting artist in the Ambient and World Music category, Venuti will perform on a range of instruments, including an EVI, or electronic valve instrument, and the Hang, a patented percussion tool that appropriately resembles a 1950s flying saucer. (Furthermore, Venuti’s usual house band is called the Venusians.) So it’s ideal that he’ll create his otherworldly sounds at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature’s Planetarium Theater, backed by stirring videos of nature and the vastness of space, the latter courtesy of NASA and the James Webb Space Telescope. The show is at 7 p.m. May 9 at the museum, 201 10th St. W., Bradenton. (941) 746-4131, bishopscience.org.

ensembleNewSRQ: Parisian Refraction

The final program of the Historic Asolo Theater’s (HAT) season of guest artists inspired by Paris, “Parisian Refraction” welcomes the forward-thinking musicians of Sarasota’s ensembleNewSRQ to perform works influenced by, or embodying, the City of Light. Channeling the pulse of contemporary classical music, the three-day event is presented as a micro-festival, so you can attend all four performances and hear completely different programs. Some feature sprawling single compositions (Hans Otte’s “Book of Sounds,” at 7:30 p.m. May 10; György Kurtag’s “Kafka Fragments,” at 2 p.m. May 11), while the opening program, at 7:30 p.m. May 9, features three pieces, two of them composed by South Korean living legend Unsuk Chin. The HAT is at the Ringling Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota. (941) 359-5700, ringling.org.

Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical

As a straight drama, Reginald Rose’s seminal play Twelve Angry Men tasks a dozen jurors—traditionally all white—with deciding the guilt or innocence of a Black youth accused of murder. Only one juror is unconvinced of the child’s guilt, and he spends the play’s duration attempting to sway his colleagues, in turn exposing their inherent biases. The play remains a crackling piece of stagecraft and a paean to how our judicial system is supposed to work, and this musical update, which premiered in 2022, only enhances its contemporary relevance with its jazz-inflected songs and more-diverse cast, which changes the intensity and dynamics of what was already the theatrical equivalent of a lit fuse. Asolo Rep’s season-closing production runs May 11-June 9 at 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. (941) 351-8000, asolorep.org.

One Night of Queen

Freddie Mercury may have been an inimitable iconoclast, but if there’s anybody that can rightly claim to carry his torch, it’s Gary Mullen, a singer-songwriter who rose to fame with his show-winning impersonation of Mercury in the British competition series Stars in Their Eyes in 2000. Since 2002, he’s been touring with his band, The Works, in the theatrical tribute One Night of Queen, in which he marries the late rocker’s range, pitch and onstage flamboyance with an already uncanny resemblance to Mercury. The result is the closest thing we’re likely to get to a Queen concert circa 1985, with all the hits—“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Are the Champions,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” et al—turning up in the two-hour concert. He performs at 8 p.m. May 10 at Van Wezel Performing Arts Center, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. (941) 263-6799, vanwezel.org.

Treat Yourself Like a Queen Women’s Expo

Pampering is not just permitted but encouraged at this annual exposition from Florida Penguin Productions. More than 40 exhibitors representing the health, beauty and fashion industries will share their products and insights, supplemented by live dance performances and other entertainment, fashion shows, a mother-daughter look-alike contest, giveaways and raffles—in other words, plenty of activities to while away a delightfully stress-free (and dude-free) day, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 11, at the Mall at University Town Center, 140 University Town Center Drive, Sarasota. (727) 674-1464, floridapenguinproductions.com.

Urban Bush Women

Born in Brooklyn in 1984, the dance collective Urban Bush Women (UBW) is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a free afternoon concert at The Bay. Artistic Director Chanon Judson, whose credits include the Tony-winning musical “Fela!”, leads the troupe, following in the choreographed footsteps of founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, both committed to diversifying the landscape of contemporary dance. We don’t know exactly which pieces the UBW will perform, but their latest production, “This is Risk,” combines storytelling and dance on three numbers that address issues of immigration, displacement, memory and magic. Catch the performance at 1 p.m. May 11 at The Bay, 1055 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota. (941) 203-5316, thebaysarasota.org.