The Magnetic Fields have unveiled the video for "'81 How to Play the Synthesizer," a song on the forthcoming album 50 Song Memoir. The song, which may be downloaded now with pre-orders of the album, is one of fifty on the five-disc set that chronicles the fifty years of songwriter Stephin Merritt's life with one song per year. The video was directed by John Erickson, Alex Basco Koch, and José Zayas and produced by Ghost Corporeal. It was originally created for the Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir concert tour directed by Zayas. Watch it here.

Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express will perform music from their album Junun as the opening act for Radiohead in select cities on the band's sold-out European tour: at the Spektrum in Oslo on June 6 and 7, Ericsson Globe in Stockholm on June 9, 3 Arena in Dublin on June 20, and Manchester Arena on July 4 and 5. Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express will also perform at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona on June 3 and Best Kept Secret in the Netherlands on June 18. The Times of London calls Junun "intriguing, sinuous, and essential listening."

Rhiannon Giddens's new album, Freedom Highway, is due next Friday, February 24. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming in full here as an NPR First Listen. It's a "rich collection, the latest chapter in the 40-year-old master folklorist, banjo virtuoso and vocal powerhouse's epic retelling of our history with its sins and sorrows—and joy born of resilience—fully reinstated," says NPR. "[H]ope comes back to life in Giddens' music."

Emmylou Harris will join John Mellencamp as very special guest on his US tour this spring and summer. Their first stop is at Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre in Denver, followed by shows across the country, in Idaho, Washington, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, culminating at the Forest Hill Stadium in Queens on July 11. Tickets for most shows go on sale starting next Friday, February 24.

Chris Thile, the host of A Prairie Home Companion, welcomed label mate Brad Mehldau to the show as a special guest this past weekend. They performed two songs from their debut duo album: Mehldau's tune "The Watcher" and the David Rawlings / Gillian Welch song "Scarlet Town." You can watch their performance of the latter here. Mehldau also contributes a solo improvisation to the episode, which you can hear at prairiehome.org. 

Nonesuch releases an album of Bach works recorded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and bassist Edgar Meyer, Bach Trios, on April 7, 2017, with the vinyl edition due April 21. The album comprises works by J.S. Bach originally written for keyboard instruments, plus one sonata for viola da gamba. The trio performs in nine cities across the US beginning on April 21. Pre-orders of the album include an instant download of the first movement of Trio Sonata No. 6 in G Major, BWV 530.

Rhiannon Giddens's five-song EP Factory Girl, first released on vinyl and digitally in late 2015, is now available on CD for the first time. The EP, which is up for Grammy Awards for Best American Roots Performance and Best Folk Album, is culled from the T Bone Burnett–produced sessions that yielded Giddens's acclaimed solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. "It's a clutch of tunes that work together like the cards in a winning poker hand," the New York Times says of Factory Girl. "Her accompaniment … points to an ageless gold standard for American roots music." "Deftly curated, gorgeously sung," says NPR, "this EP is America." Her new album, Freedom Highway, is due February 24.

The Staves, who kick off a four-week tour of North America next week, release the double A side "Tired As Fuck," a previously unreleased tune, and "Train Tracks," a re-mastered version of a bonus track from their 2015 album If I Was. The former was "written in the midst of a relationship breaking down," says the trio. "Lamenting the lack of some sort of guidance, but also accepting and resigning yourself to fact that you have to soldier on. Keep going. There is no helping hand. 'Train Tracks' is the beginning of something new and how confusing and difficult that can be when you're really just as clueless as anyone! The two tracks bookend each other in that respect." You can watch a video for "Tired As Fuck" here.

The ECHO Jazz 2017 Award nominations have been announced by the German Recording Academy, and among the nominees are Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau their debut duo album, Nearness; drummer Jeff Ballard for the Brad Mehldau Trio's latest album, Blues and Ballads; drummer Antonio Sánchez for the Pat Metheny Unity Group album The Unity Sessions; and trumpeter Cuong Vu for the album Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny. 

Lake Street Dive, performing at the Avett Brothers' festival in Mexico this week, returns to the US for a two-month tour starting at the group's alma mater, the New England Conservatory, in Boston, February 16. The tour includes sold-out shows throughout the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West Coast, culminating in a concert in Los Angeles on the first day of spring. Several spring and summer festival dates are confirmed as well.

Stephen Sondheim will receive the 2017 PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award at PEN America's annual Literary Gala on April 25 in New York; Meryl Streep will present the prize. "Stephen Sondheim's oeuvre is profoundly literary in its elegiac reaching for the truth of who we are, how we love, and how we strive to locate meaning in our work," said Andrew Solomon, president of PEN America. "He will be the first composer-lyricist to receive this award, which recognizes his nuanced insight into human character. His support for a new generation of writers makes him a literary citizen of the first order."

John Adams has joined the faculty of the Royal Academy of Music in London as a Visiting Professor. In 2012, Adams conducted concerts at Lincoln Center and the BBC Proms in which Academy students performed alongside Juilliard School players; in 2015, the Academy gave him an Honorary Doctorate. As part of his new role, he returns to the Academy in 2017 to work with opera students, instrumentalists, and composers. "I'm proud and delighted to spend time with the very talented students of the Royal Academy of Music," he says. "I'll be able to spend time with the young composers, singers and instrumentalists in a relationship that is as fruitful for me as it hopefully will be for the students."