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[Temujin]

So, I've had real problems with my dwarf musicians in the last update of the game.  In order to do some !!SCIENCE!!, I set up an embark with all the dwarven instruments, and gave all of my dwarves the musician skill as well as the specialty skills, and one dancer.   When I set up my tavern, they tell stories.  Despite having the instruments they are trained to use in the tavern.  I've tried making them performers, putting the instruments in stockpiles, changing the tavern to a temple, making cups and serving alcohold (a dwarf died. . . natural selection in action).  I'm not sure what is going on.   They don't even mimic instruments, they just don't use their music skills at all.   Any insight?

[Leonidas]

My dwarves also prefer stories and poetry over music. And I've never seen them dance. The few times that I've caught them playing music, the song has been very short. So maybe there's some music going on that we aren't seeing.

There are some lines at the bottom of announcement.txt that relate to performances. If you want to investigate this further, you might start by modifying those.

[PatrikLundell]

Dorfs play only music they know, and that music is tied to specific instruments (dorfs don't know how to modify pieces for the instruments at hand/known). Thus, in order to play an instrument the dorfs need both an appropriate piece and access to the instrument (with simulation of the instrument if that isn't available).
There seems to be a disconnect between known music (if any) and known instruments, as it's not unusual to have the buggers simulate instruments that are foreign to your civ (i.e. not in the lists of the ones you can make), even if you have never seen a visitor.

So, what's going in is probably that your dorfs don't know any music pieces. I believe there's a data structure in either/or the unit/hist fig listing all the music/dances/poems known (there is one for all books read, at least).
I don't know what happens if a music piece requires multiple participants, i.e. if it's sufficient for one dorf to know the piece to lead the performance, if the piece can be performed with fewer participants than it's written for, or if it requires both the full set of participants and all participants knowing the piece.

Anyway, I've seen both music and dance, but the vast majority of performances are in the form of poetry (and in addition to the art forms, there also a sprinkling of story telling, i.e. retelling of a historical event).

[Leonidas]

I just saw four dwarves perform a musical piece. One sang, while the other three imitated instruments. Two of the imitated instruments were sitting in coffers just a few steps away.

[mikekchar]

One thing I've always meant to try is to bring an adventurer over to my fortress (retired) and train the dwarfs in pieces of music.  That way half of the battle is won.  I'm not sure how to get them to learn an instrument, though...

[PatrikLundell]

One thing I've always meant to try is to bring an adventurer over to my fortress (retired) and train the dwarfs in pieces of music.  That way half of the battle is won.  I'm not sure how to get them to learn an instrument, though...

At a guess, bring the instrument(s) specified for the pieces as well. You might try to perform using the instruments to see if they're able to pick up any hints from that.
Note that all of this is pure speculation, as I know next to nothing about adventure mode.

Prior to Leonidas' comment I thought instrument availability would be sufficient for them to play them (not well, of course...).

[Loci]

Two of the imitated instruments were sitting in coffers just a few steps away.

There is a known bug which causes instruments to become unusable. You can confirm by removing and rebuilding the coffers; unusable instruments will remain scattered about.