The Times (UK) weighed in on the decade's best music late last month, including Nonesuch albums in each of four categories. Now, the Sunday Times  offers its list of the best albums of 2009, and Nonesuch artists are one again represented across genres: Wilco for Wilco (the album) in rock/pop, Kronos Quartet's Floodplain in world, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi in jazz. SPIN includes Wilco (the album) and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali on its own list of the year's best.

John Adams and Kronos Quartet return to Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles tonight for another concert in West Coast, Left Coast, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's music festival curated by Adams. Tonight, they'll join the LA Phil for the world premiere of Thomas Newman's new piece, It Got Dark. An encore performance will be given at the Hall tomorrow night.

West Coast, Left Coast, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's festival curated by John Adams, continues tonight with the composer and Kronos Quartet performing California-inspired music at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Adams will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group in performances of Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes and selections from Frank Zappa's Yellow Shark; Kronos performs Harry Partch's U.S. Highball.

This weekend marks the start of West Coast, Left Coast, the LA Philharmonic festival curated by John Adams, its creative chair. The festival, which celebrates the unique spirit of California's creative renegades, kicks off on Saturday with a special Opening Event titled Eureka!, featuring Kronos Quartet's premiere of a new work by Thomas Newman.

Kronos Quartet was in New York City earlier this week to receive the Asia Society's Cultural Achievement Award at the organization's annual gala at the Waldorf Astoria hotel Tuesday night. Kronos was recognized for its efforts to link cultures and create a global cultural dialogue through music. Among the night's honorees were Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney.

Sesame Street celebrated its 40th anniversary on Tuesday, and Kronos Quartet has offered its own best wishes by revisiting its appearance on the show. In 1987, the group stopped by Sesame Street to talk with Big Bird about the string quartet, becoming in the process one of the few groups who could possibly perform "Purple Haze," the Jimi Hendrix classic, so fittingly on the show.

While Kronos Quartet was in New York City last week for a performance at Carnegie Hall, it's unclear whether members of the group stopped by this particular New York food-cart vendor to sample the city's finer fare. Though we at the Nonesuch Journal are unprepared at this time to endorse this product, we are happy to heed its advice and always "Ask for a Kronos!"

Kronos Quartet performed at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday as part of Kronos's Perspectives series, the only artist to be given such a focus this season. It also happens to coincide with the Hall's current festival of Chinese music, and, says the New York Times, "Of the many Western ensembles trooping into Carnegie to play Chinese music (or music about China) the Kronos is by far the most adept at cultural crossing over."

Kronos Quartet announces the tour dates for its 2009/10 concert season, a season that will bring the group all over the United States and to seven countries around the globe. Highlights include a Carnegie Hall Perspectives; collaborations with artists like Wu Man, Tanya Tagaq, and Alim Qasimov; the John Adams–curated West Coast, Left Coast festival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and several world and New York premieres.

Kronos Quartet's performance in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last Thursday offered the sort of program for which the group earned once more the label "groundbreaking" in the New York Times review. The program featured works from Kronos's latest album, Floodplain, to which the Toronto Star gives a perfect four stars. "The Kronos Quartet never disappoints," exclaims the Star, "but on their latest disc they are even better than ever ... There isn't a single musical moment left wanting." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette gives it an A-, recommending in particular "the remarkable" album closer by Serbian-born composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.

Kronos Quartet will give the premiere of "Aheym," a new piece written for the group by the National's Bryce Dessner during a free outdoor concert in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! series, tonight at 7:30 PM. Dessner, in an interview with Pitchfork about this piece and the many other projects he's been working on of late, explains: "I've long been a fan of Kronos. I think a lot of people with my kind of background in contemporary music tend to be, because they're just such an important group." Also on tonight's program are works from Kronos's recent Nonesuch release, Floodplain, among others.

Kronos Quartet's latest Nonesuch release, Floodplain, is out now. The New Statesman names it among the year's best, a "celebration of Middle Eastern, Balkan and African musical traditions, recast for string quartet to truly joyous effect." Songlines gives the album a perfect five stars, calling it "one of their most assertive statements in years." Billboard says "the album champions the rich sonic tapestries" of the regions it showcases, and the Detroit Free Press writes, "You can never predict where the intrepid Kronos Quartet is going next, but you can count on an interesting journey." MusicOMH interviews David Harrington, the music director of the group OMH calls "one of the world's busiest, eclectic, and perhaps most creative ensembles."