Chris Thile and his fellow Punch Brothers have announced tapings for the second season of their musical variety show The Energy Curfew Music Hour at Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City, January 11 and 16 and February 13, 18, and 24; special guests to be announced. (The first season is available now on all major podcast platforms). They have also announced the third annual Chris Thile Acousticamp, returning to Asilomar Hotel in Pacific Grove, CA, June 27–July 1, with fellow instructor/collaborators Julian Lage, Michael Daves, Maddie Witler, and first time faculty Josh Ritter.

Composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose piece Land of Winter, performed by Alarm Will Sound and conductor Alan Pierson, was released earlier this month on Nonesuch, shares some insight on the work, which explores the subtleties of Ireland’s seasons via twelve connected sections representing the months of the year, in a new essay. "It is the varying quality of light that truly demarcates the seasons," he says, "from the shorter days of grey or piercing light in the winter to the warmer but mercurial light of summer days that at solstice stretch almost to midnight. I like this play between light and time, and it is the major inspiration behind the piece."

Laurie Anderson has released “India And On Down to Australia,” a track featuring Anohni, from her new album, Amelia, due August 30, about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. "The rhythm was from an unreleased song called ‘Rumba Club’ that I always wanted to use as something,” Anderson says of the new track. “It was recorded during pandemic times. And so the orchestra [Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies] recorded their part, and then it came to me to put the electronics and voice on it. And I thought, ‘I need to make the story a little bit bigger,' so I’m going to find a bridge between the electronic viola that I’m playing and the orchestra, so that became percussion by Kenny Wollesen, bass by Tony Scherr, viola by Martha Mooke—a little string trio that was organized by Rob Moose, with Nadia Sirota playing as well. And then Marc Ribot doing some groove parts and of course Anohni. So it became this big romantic orchestral thing.”

Congratulations to Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, who have been nominated for eight IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards! Tuttle and the band are up for Entertainer of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, Instrumental Group of the Year, and Album of the Year for City of Gold (which won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album). Tuttle is nominated for both Female Vocalist of the Year and Guitar Player of the Year, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes for Fiddle Player of the Year and New Artist of the Year. Additionally, Jerry Douglas, who produced City of Gold with Tuttle and is up Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year, will be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. The IBMA Music Awards will be held September 26 in Raleigh.

"When Sō Percussion started working with Caroline, we noticed that her first creative step, before writing any music, was to suggest sounds. Then, she would step back and listen," Sō's Adam Sliwinski writes in his liner note to the new Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion album, Rectangles and Circumstance, out this Friday on Nonesuch. You can read his note here.

"There are times when we find ourselves isolated and alone, or in reflection and solitude," Julia Bullock writes in the liner notes to her solo debut album, Walking in the Dark. "There are other times when we choose to connect to further understand each other, which provides us with an opportunity to share our evolving identities—maybe even better discern how to communicate. And who knows ... if our intentions are translated well enough and are clearly in focus, it may lead to some moments of illumination." You can read her note here.

"Finally bringing this recording to your ears, after so many years ... is a tremendous exhale and a collective accomplishment made possible by many small and many giant acts of generosity," Shara Nova writes in a new essay about the creation of The Blue Hour, a song cycle collaboration among composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Nova, who performs the piece with the commissioning chamber orchestra A Far Cry on the album out this Friday.

"John’s music is about promise and progress," Julia Bullock writes in her note in the new 40-disc box set John Adams Collected Works. "It comments on the inherent threat of exploiting power while embodying it. There’s fire and fragility, placed alongside organized form and frequency. I love John’s music. I love singing it, learning from it. And I love listening to it." You can read her complete note from the box set here.

"John’s music has been such a constant in my life that it’s reached a base level of my consciousness—it’s part of the way I hear all music now," Timo Andres (pictured here with John Adams in 2007) writes in his note in the new 40-disc box set John Adams Collected Works. "But in this case, it goes beyond the music. John showed me a model for life as an artist, one in which being communicative, permeable, and all-embracing can coexist with good craftsmanship, strongly held opinions, and the pursuit of one’s life’s work with single-minded intensity." You can read his complete note from the box set here.

"It would be difficult to make an account of all the ways John Adams’s music has influenced me and my work," Nico Muhly writes in his note in the upcoming 40-disc box set John Adams Collected Works, "but in the spirit of writing something personal, I’d like to offer a few perhaps impersonal observations about his work in a more circular, even crabwise, fashion. There are specific places in John’s music where there is a rhyme hidden across decades, relating to an elusive sense of 'meaning' in his music which radiates across his body of work." You can read his complete note from the box set here.

In this essay, composer Sarah Kirkland Snider shares the story of (and behind-the-scenes photos from) her collaboration with video designer Deborah Johnson / CandyStations on Mass for the Endangered. The Mass, with a libretto by poet/writer Nathaniel Bellows, is a celebration of, and an elegy for, the natural world, an appeal for greater awareness, urgency, and action. The recording, on which the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus performs the piece, is due September 25. 'Sanctus/Benedictus,' from the piece, is available now, as is Johnson's video for it.

The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade—who reunite for the upcoming album RoundAgain, met up for a conversation about the project, their first recording together since 1994’s MoodSwing. They shared stories from their long history together while at the Falcon in upstate New York for a performance last fall. You can watch the conversation here, along with previously released performances of two RoundAgain tracks from the concert.