John Black was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 singer and composer active in the Middle Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 period. Black was based in Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

, working as a singer and assistant organist, and eventually became Master of the Song School in the city. Black at first refused to give up Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

 during the Reformation

Reformation

- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

, but by 1575 had abandoned holy orders and taken a wife.

Black wrote consorts and "lessons" on psalms as part of his work as a teacher, some of which are published in the Scottish manuscript "The Art of Music" compiled in the late 1570s. A Pavan and Galliard dedicated to William Keith have also survived in Scottish manuscripts.