In celebration of Nonesuch Records' 60th anniversary, the label has partnered with photographer Michael Wilson—who has exquisitely captured dozens of Nonesuch artists over the past quarter-century—to produce Michael Wilson / 25 Years: A Nonesuch Collection, an extremely limited quantity of 100 box sets containing newly created prints from his Nonesuch archive, out now. You can take a quick look inside here. Designed by the Grammy-winning team at SMOG Design, each box comprises twenty 12" x 12" prints, numbered and signed by the photographer. Artists featured are Allen Toussaint, Ambrose Akinmusire, Audra McDonald, Bill Frisell, The Black Keys, Brad Mehldau, David Byrne, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Frederic Rzewski, Jeremy Denk, Kronos Quartet, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Manuel Galbán and Ry Cooder, Philip Glass, Randy Newman, Rhiannon Giddens, Stephin Merritt and Lemony Snicket, Steve Reich, and Timo Andres, who wrote a note for the box.

For Nonesuch Records' 60th anniversary, the label has partnered with photographer Michael Wilson—who has exquisitely captured dozens of Nonesuch artists over the past quarter-century—to produce Michael Wilson / 25 Years: A Nonesuch Collection, 100 box sets of 20 newly created prints from his Nonesuch archive, due September 13. Here, Wilson shares stories from the photo sessions behind the images in the box, with Allen Toussaint, Ambrose Akinmusire, Audra McDonald, Bill Frisell, The Black Keys, Brad Mehldau, David Byrne, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Frederic Rzewski, Jeremy Denk, Kronos Quartet, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Manuel Galbán and Ry Cooder, Philip Glass, Randy Newman, Rhiannon Giddens, Stephin Merritt and Lemony Snicket, Steve Reich, and Timo Andres.

"They were both fearless, pushing back against the severe music that seemed to dominate the modern composition landscape during the 1960s and 1970s, the same music that was, by the way, a major part of Nonesuch’s identity during that period," writes Nonesuch Records Chairman Emeritus Bob Hurwitz, in a remembrance of composers Louis Andriessen and Frederic Rzewski. "Neither was afraid to reference vernacular music, and jazz, and popular and folk music, and most importantly, both embraced a tonal language that was out of favor at the moment they were coming of age as composers. Their music was deadly serious at times, and polemical and political, but it could be humorous, and always filled with humanity."

Composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski, whom music critic Mark Swed once called "the greatest pianist-composer of our time," has died at the age of 83. Emerging in the 1960s with the improv collective Music Elettronica Viva, the expatriate American composer spent his entire career apart from what he described as the “elitist contemporary music establishment,” and established his own unique compositional style in which improvisation and composition are inextricably linked. In 2002, Nonesuch Records released Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Piano Works 1975-1999, a seven-disc, 25-year retrospective of his piano-based work with new recordings performed by the composer.

Works by John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Frederic Rzewski, Bill Frisell, John Zorn, John Cage meet the music of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's second annual 8 Days in June music festival, which kicks off tonight. It's a multidisciplinary affair aiming to examine the relationship between music and the explosive changes of the 20th and 21st centuries and harness the "The Power of Change."

April 13, 2008, marked the 70th birthday of composer Frederic Rzewski, who, in 2002, performed his own works for piano on a seven-disc collection, Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Piano Works, 1975-1999, released by Nonesuch. This week, the composer will celebrate with three special concert events: tonight and tomorrow as part of the renowned Gilmore Keyboard Festival and this Thursday in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in New York. The New York Times writes of the 2002 collection that, for all of Rzewski's "anarchic streak," both humorous and political, "what emerges above all is a picture of a pianist enamored of his instrument as handed down by the master builders of the 19th century."

"The man was Frederic Rzewski," writes Mark Swed in a review of Rzewski's recent concert in California, "the greatest pianist-composer of our time and something of a legend in modern music."