Laurie Anderson released her Nonesuch Records debut album 15 years ago today, August 21, 2001. It's "sparse, haunted, intimate," said Rolling Stone of the album. "Laurie Anderson is a singer-songwriter of crushing poignance." With Life on a String, she turned her view inward, creating one of the most personal recordings of her career; she played violin on a record for the first time since her debut album, Big Science. Guest musicians include Bill Frisell, Lou Reed, and Van Dyke Parks. You can hear the album's title track here.

Nonesuch releases John Adams's Scheherazade.2 on September 30, 2016. The 50-minute "dramatic symphony" was written for the violinist Leila Josefowicz, who performs it here with the St. Louis Symphony led by Music Director David Robertson; Chester Englander is the cimbalom soloist. In the piece, Adams imagines a modern day Scheherazade, an "empowered, liberated spirit embodied in the multifaceted solo violin role," he says. "Scheherazade.2 is also a virtuoso romantic symphony-concerto on the grand scale which acknowledges its predecessors in works by Sibelius, Prokofiev, Bartók, and Berg." He and Josefowicz will perform Scheherazade.2 with orchestras in Europe this fall.

Emmylou Harris will tour North America this fall with special guests Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, and The Milk Carton Kids (not all artists will appear at all venues). The 11-stop tour, Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees, will raise awareness for the unprecedented worldwide refugee crisis. Jesuit Refugee Service/USA (JRS) will host this singer/songwriter tour in support of the organization's Global Education Initiative. "After witnessing firsthand the work of JRS in Ethiopia this past June, I have never been more inspired to champion such a critical cause," said Harris. "The better angels of our nature call upon us to act with compassion and not with fear in the face of so much suffering."

Kronos Quartet released its Nonesuch Records debut album 30 years ago today, August 15, 1986. The self-titled album includes works by Peter Sculthorpe, Aulis Sallinen, Philip Glass, Conlon Nancarrow, and Jimi Hendrix. The Washington Post praised the group's "breadth of vision" throughout a collection "devoted to some of the most imaginative music of our time." The New York Times called it "the best recorded anthology yet to capture the heady diversity of musical idioms that this San Francisco quartet espouses."

Lianne La Havas will follow a summer spent on a 37-concert, 15-country tour with Coldplay, including four sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium, with a return to the US this fall to play 17 dates with Leon Bridges and four shows with her own band in NYC, LA, New Orleans, and Atlanta. Ahead of the tour, she has released a solo acoustic cover of the beloved Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "I Say a Little Prayer," recorded live at the Rock Werchter festival in Brussels earlier this year, available now. You can watch a video of the performance here.

Portuguese singer Mariza has unveiled the opening track to her newest album, Mundo, due in the US on September 9. The song, "Rio de Mágoa," a classic fado, can be heard here and may be downloaded with pre-orders of the album. This follows the release of the album track "Maldição," which is also included with pre-orders. Songlines named Mariza its Best Artist for the year and called Mundo "an unalloyed triumph." She returns to North America to tour this fall.

Caetano Veloso, who recently helped usher in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in an Opening Ceremony performance with Gilberto Gil and Anitta, has made President Barack Obama's 2016 Summer Playlist. Veloso's live performance of the song "Cucurrucucú Paloma," from his 2003 Nonesuch release The Best of Caetano Veloso, can be heard on the Nighttime side of the President's new playlist on Spotify. President Obama's inaugural Summer Playlist, released last year, included the title track to Lianne La Havas's album Is Your Love Big Enough?.

Nonesuch releases Brazilian samba singer Teresa Cristina's album and DVD Canta Cartola on September 2, 2016. Recorded live in concert at Theatro Net in Rio de Janeiro with guitarist Carlinhos Sete Cordas, it captures their acoustic performance of songs by Brazil's beloved samba-ist Angenor de Oliveira ("Cartola"). "Canta Cartola feels fully embodied," says the New York Times, "as if Ms. Cristina had written the songs herself." She performs at The Town Hall in NYC on October 12, in support of Caetano Veloso, who exclaims: "Teresa develops every melody, every word, every second. It's magical." Pre-order Canta Cartola to download the track "Corra e Olhe o Céu" now.

The legendary Brazilian singers, songwriters, and guitarists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil will perform at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro at the Maracanã Stadium this Friday, August 5. The ceremony will be broadcast around the world and can be seen in the US on NBC starting at 7:30 PM ET. Nonesuch released a live two-disc recording from Veloso and Gil—Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live—earlier this year, celebrating a lifelong friendship over the half-century careers of two artists who hold key roles in developing and keeping Brazilian popular music vibrant and alive around the world.

This past winter, Conor Oberst found himself hibernating in his hometown of Omaha after living in New York City for more than a decade. He emerged with the unexpectedly raw, unadorned solo album Ruminations, available October 14, 2016, on Nonesuch. He went to ARC, the studio he built with his Bright Eyes bandmate and friend Mike Mogis, and, with the help of engineer Ben Brodin, recorded all the songs within 48 hours. The results are almost sketch-like in their sparseness: Oberst alone with his guitar, piano, and harmonica. Oberst will perform songs from the album at special solo shows this fall at venues including Carnegie Hall and the Ryman Auditorium.

Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields will lead a two-week residency at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, that culminates in the world premiere of a staged performance of the forthcoming Nonesuch Records album 50 Song Memoir, an album celebrating Merritt's first half-century on the planet, November 18 and 19. Following the premiere, the Magnetic Fields perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December, Royce Hall in LA in April, and Moore Theatre in Seattle in May.

Lake Street Dive resumes its North American tour in Louisville on Wednesday. The extensive tour includes stops in St. Louis, Boulder, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Northampton, and more, leading into September for three nights at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state with Dave Matthews Band. The tour continues with headline shows in Nashville, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Madison, Birmingham, Knoxville, and others, concluding in October with shows at the Wang Theatre in Boston and Radio City Music Hall in NYC, and two nights at Union Transfer in Philadelphia.