Composer William Brittelle has shared the full score for and story of "Forbidden Colors," from his new album, Spiritual America. On the album, Wye Oak, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and the Metropolis Ensemble perform a genre-defying electro-acoustic song cycle written by Brittelle, who works to reconcile his youth in a conservative Christian household with his adult life as an "agnostic Buddhist." You can download the "Forbidden Colors" score and follow along as Brittelle breaks it down here.

Brad Mehldau has written an essay regarding his song "The Prophet Is a Fool," from his new album, Finding Gabriel, and the video for it featuring animation by Dima Drjuchin, to "explain a bit of the personal emotions and politics that went into it." You can read it here.

Brad Mehldau has shared the story behind the title track to his new Trio album, Seymour Reads The Constitution!, in a new essay. "In 2014, I had a dream that the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was reading the American Constitution to me," he begins. You can read what he has to say here.

Rhiannon Giddens delivered the keynote address at the 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association business conference held in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday, September 26. Here are her remarks, titled "Community and Connection."

Rokia Traoré joined the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at a refugee camp in Burkina Faso to meet and hear from those displaced by the troubles in her home country of Mali. In honor of today's World Refugee Day, Traoré has written about the experience in an essay, which you can read here.

The Black Keys stopped by the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London to talk with Zane Lowe and perform three tracks from their forthcoming album, Turn Blue: the first single, "Fever"; the title track; and an exclusive new track from the album, "Bullet in the Brain." You can watch the performance of "Bullet in the Brain" here. The band was on Later … with Jools Holland live on Tuesday and will be on the full show Friday night.

Jeremy Denk has written a brief personal history for this week's issue of The New Yorker, the Money Issue. In the piece, his third for the magazine, Denk shares a story from early in his career. He is also featured on the latest edition of The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, discussing his new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The album includes video "liner notes," about which Tom Moon writes in Medium: "After hearing him speak with such precision about the details of the work, it’s an absolute delight to hear him use so much of his personality—his poise and exacting sense of order, his restraint leavened by a childlike peering-around-corners curiosity—to bring Bach to life."

Jeremy Denk has written a personal history for The New Yorker titled "Every Good Boy Does Fine: A life in piano lessons." In the article, his second contribution to the magazine, Denk offers insight on the relationship between music students and teachers by recounting a few such relationships in his own life. The New York Times, reviewing Denk's solo recital at Carnegie Hall last week, says his “colossal interpretations conveyed the sense of composers grappling with the ineffable, inventing new vocabulary to express the inexpressible." Following his recent solo debut at Boston's Jordan Hall, the Boston Globe exclaimed: “Denk gave a revelatory performance ... It would be foolish to understate how remarkably talented he is.” 

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, Nonesuch released Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on which Billy Bragg and Wilco put music to lyrics by Guthrie for which he had not written music or made recordings. Bragg has launched a tour in celebration of the centenary and has just added four specially curated acoustic shows in the UK and Ireland this September, with guests Joe Henry, KT Tunstall, and more. Here, in his own words, Bragg shares his thoughts on Guthrie, the Mermaid Avenue project, and the concerts.

Ligeti/Beethoven, the Nonesuch Records debut from acclaimed pianist Jeremy Denk, is out today. The album, which features Ligeti's Piano Études, Books One and Two, and Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111, includes an essay written by Denk, a noted writer, both on his blog and in such publications as The New Yorker and the New York Times Book Review. Read his album note here.

Carolina Chocolate Drops are back in the US after a week in the UK, which saw four-star reviews from the Guardian and Times of London, to launch a months-long US tour in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tonight. The tour will take the band up and down the East Coast and to the Midwest then out West before they head back east to play the New Orleans Jazz Fest in April. The band's new album, Leaving Eden, is due out February 28. Check out a preview video here, featuring the album's opening track, "Riro's House."

Kronos Quartet received the Polar Music Prize in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall last week, along with their fellow laureate, Patti Smith. "Music is one of humanity's most essential resources—the 'greenest' of substances—here one moment, a memory the next," said Kronos artistic director David Harrington in the group's acceptance speech. "The greatest piece has yet to be written, the most perfect note has yet to be played." Read the complete text of the speech and see several photos from the ceremony here.