Offa Rex, the new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, has shared its take on "The Old Churchyard," from its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, due July 14. You can watch a studio performance video of the track, which premiered on Lenny, here. Lenny calls the album "a love letter to British folk music and an experiment in bridging musical sensibilities and finding common ground in the shared histories recounted in these classic songs." "The Old Churchyard" is available to download now with pre-orders of The Queen of Hearts, along with two previously released tracks.

Folk Songs, a new album joining Kronos Quartet with Nonesuch Records labelmates Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant is out now. The artists on the album first came together to perform these songs, most of which are traditional with contemporary arrangements, when Nonesuch celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014 with festivals at the Barbican Centre and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The group later recorded the songs with Doug Petty as the album's producer. You can take a quick look at the project in an album trailer here.

Offa Rex, the new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, has shared its take on "Blackleg Miner," from its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, due July 14. You can watch a studio performance video of the track, which premiered on Billboard, here. "Blackleg Miner" is available to download now with pre-orders of The Queen of Hearts, along with the previously released title track.

Offa Rex, the new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, releases its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, on Nonesuch on July 14. Here, the artists speak with writer Michael Hill about the project and how it came to be.

On July 14, Nonesuch will release The Queen of Hearts, the debut album from Offa Rex, a new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine and Colin Meloy at Martine's studio in Portland, OR, and mostly arranged by Chaney, The Queen of Hearts draws largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining its own inimitable identity. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an exclusive print and an instant download of the title track, a performance video of which can be seen here.

When Nonesuch Records celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014, with festivals at the Barbican in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Kronos Quartet joined forces with labelmates Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant to perform a concert entitled Folk Songs. The group later recorded the songs, most of which are traditional with contemporary arrangements, with Doug Petty as producer. Folk Songs will be released June 9, 2017, and is available to pre-order with an instant download of the track "The Butcher's Boy," featuring Merchant.

Olivia Chaney plays six shows as special guest of Ben Folds on his UK tour with the yMusic ensemble, starting this Friday. She performs songs from her debut album, The Longest River, in shows at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Sage Gateshead, Brighton Dome, and Cambridge Corn Exchange, as well as two nights at the London Palladium. You can hear Chaney perform songs from the album on WXPN's Folkadelphia here.

Olivia Chaney stopped by two BBC radio programs today, ahead of performances at Birmingham Symphony Hall for a multi-artist tribute to Nick Drake on Thursday and at St John's Smith Square in London for the London Festival of Baroque Music on Sunday. She spoke of her connection to Purcell and shared some illustrative songs live on BBC Radio 3's In Tune and spoke with BBC Radio 4's Front Row and wrote an article on the subject for the Guardian. Chaney will perform with Joe Boyd in Cardiff next month and tour the UK as special guest of Ben Folds and yMusic.

The 2016 Big Ears Festival gets under way in Knoxville, Tennessee, today, and featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass, Olivia Chaney, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and Bombino. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville through Saturday.

Olivia Chaney will tour the United Kingdom this spring, including six shows as special guest of Ben Folds on his tour of England with yMusic. Chaney will perform in two UK festivals—ATP Festival in North Wales in April and the London Festival of Baroque Music in May—before joining Folds and the ensemble for concerts in Manchester, Gateshead, Brighton, and Cambridge, as well as two nights at the London Palladium. Before then, she heads to the United States to perform at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville in March.

There's more than a month to go before 2015 comes to a close, and already the UK music magazines have begun to weigh in on the year's best music. Uncut and Mojo have published their lists of the Best Albums of the Year, and included among them are a number of Nonesuch releases, all firsts of a sort: Olivia Chaney's debut album, Rhiannon Giddens's first solo record, and the debut from the newly minted quartet of The Bad Plus Joshua Redman.

The line-up for the 2016 Big Ears Festival has been announced, and featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass, Olivia Chaney, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and Bombino. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 31–April 2, 2016. Weekend passes and daily tickets for the 2016 Big Ears Festival will go on sale this Friday, October 23, at 12 PM ET.