The Royal Conservatory's Koerner Hall in Toronto has announced its 2013–14 concert season, the organization's fifth anniversary season, which will feature performances from several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Audra McDonald, performing the season's sold-out opening gala concert, Chris Thile, Shawn Colvin, Rokia Traoré, and Fatoumata Diawara. Tickets are on sale now.

Rokia Traoré, who is currently touring Europe, recently performed an intimate solo version of "Ka Moun Kè" off her new album, Beautiful Africa, for the Guardian. In the exclusive live session, part of the Guardian's How I wrote ... series, she discusses the origins of this love song, the title of which translates as "Darling, What Can I Do For You?" The performance is a preview of Traoré's upcoming tour stop at the Glastonbury Festival. Watch the video here. Songlines has listed Rokia Traoré's 2009 album, Tchamantché, at No. 4 among the Top 25 Mali albums.

Rokia Traoré will be a guest on BBC Two's Later ... with Jools Holland this week, performing songs from her new album, Beautiful Africa. She and her band play "Kouma" on Tuesday's live show and "Mélancolie" and "Tuit Tuit" on Friday's show. This week's programs also include performances from Phoenix, Eric Church, Laura Marling, Petula Clark, and more. Tuesday morning, Traoré will discuss the album and perform "Ka Moun Kè" on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Rokia Traoré’s new album, Beautiful Africa, following last week's release in France, is out this week in the UK, the rest of Europe, and Canada, with the US release to follow at a later date. The album has been met with great critical acclaim, earning perfect five-star reviews from the Guardian, which calls her "Africa's most inventive singer-songwriter," Observer, Daily Telegraph, and Financial Times. Uncut calls it "a career highpoint." Traoré recorded an intimate version of the album track "Ka Moun Kè" in the halls of le Trianon in Paris; watch it here, where you can also watch her recent appearance on Radio France's Vinyl Radio.

Rokia Traoré has announced a series of new tour dates in the UK for May. She celebrates the April release of her new album, Beautiful Africa, with a tour of France, Switzerland, and Luxembourg and will perform at a number of European summer festivals, including Roskilde and a return to the UK for Glastonbury and WOMAD. Traoré is on the cover of Songlines, which gives Beautiful Africa a perfect five stars. The Chicago Reader says the new album "marks a major transformation and a huge step forward artistically." The LA Times says "Beautiful Africa ... confirms the album title's truth."

Rokia Traoré, whose new album, Beautiful Africa will be released in April 2013 in Europea and Canada by Nonesuch Records, with a US release to follow, has unveiled the video for the album track "Mélancolie." The video, directed by Romain Carciofo, premiered on Slate Afrique and can now be seen here. Beautiful Africa is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store and includes an instant download of the title track. Traoré has already announced several European spring tour dates and summer festivals, including Roskilde and Glastonbury.

Rokia Traoré’s Beautiful Africa will be released on April 9, 2013, by Nonesuch Records in Europe and Canada, with a US release to follow. The record was produced by English musician John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse) and recorded at Toybox Studios in Bristol, UK. Its lyrics are sung in the Malian–born Traoré’s native languages of French and Bambara, as well as some English. The Guardian premiered the title track this morning, calling it "brilliant." Traoré was the first artist to be announced for the 2013 Glastonbury festival line-up; additional festival and tour dates will be announced shortly.

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rokia Traoré has a new album coming in the spring of 2013 on Nonesuch Records; it is the first time Nonesuch will release her record worldwide. Further details about the album and its release will be announced shortly, as will upcoming festival and tour dates. Traoré performs at the Sydney Festival in January. Pitchfork described her most recent record, 2009’s Tchamantché, as “a guitar album of a particularly understated bent ... hauntingly spare yet ridiculously well-defined, the timbre and tone of every string presented in perfect resolution.” And the BBC World Service called it “One of the best albums of the year. An absolute stunner.”

Emmylou Harris, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara, and Oumou Sangare are participating in 30 songs / 30 days, in which female musicians from around the world have come together to support the Half the Sky movement. Through the 30 songs / 30 days project, one song per day is available to download for the month of September and leading up to the October 1 & 2 premiere of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a four-hour PBS documentary inspired by the widely acclaimed book of the same name by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. 

Rokia Traoré is in London for the first of two major projects she will unveil there this summer. This week, she presents a series of three shows produced by the Barbican based on aspects integral to Malian music and its traditions: Donguili – Donke – Damou (Sing – Dance – Dream). The Guardian gives four stars to Monday's show, citing "Traoré's exquisite, cool, clear vocals," and says "she proved to be as compelling a storyteller as she is singer." In July, she returns to the Barbican for the UK premiere of Desdemona, a collaboration with Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars.

Desdemona, Rokia Traoré's theatrical collaboration with director Peter Sellars and novelist Toni Morrison, receives its NY premiere at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater tonight and tomorrow as part of the White Light Festival. The New York Times describes it as "an interactive narrative of words, music and song about Shakespeare’s doomed heroine, who speaks to the audience from the grave about the traumas of race, class, gender, war—and the transformative power of love." The Los Angeles Times calls it "astonishing ... a great, challenging, haunting and lasting work."

Rokia Traoré joins forces with director Peter Sellars and Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison to create a new theater piece titled Desdemona, which receive its US premiere at the Zellerbach Playhouse at the University of California in Berkeley this week. It receives its New York premiere next week at Lincoln Center as part of the White Light Festival. The Associated Press says: "Traoré's stage presence is magnetic."