Pat Metheny, who won his 20th Grammy Award earlier this year for his 2012 album Unity Band, has announced the expansion of that band, featuring Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, and Ben Williams, to include multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi in the Pat Metheny Unity Group. The Unity Group will release a new album on Nonesuch Records in 2014 (details to come) and will launch a world tour in February in North America, followed by Europe in the spring. Fan ticket pre-sales begins today. "The Unity Band project was life-changing for me," writes Metheny. "With Giulio added to the core-four of us ... this is one of the strongest bands I have ever had. Just about anything will be possible."

Congratulations to Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, who took home the Duo of the Year and Album of the Year awards for their album Old Yellow Moon at the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards ceremony last night at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and to Dr. John, who was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. You can listen to the show at folkalley.com. PBS's Austin City Limits will broadcast an edited special on November 23. Voice of America and Bob Harris of BBC2 will broadcast overseas in the following weeks.

Iron and Wine's Sam Beam, who kicked off a North American fall tour with a sold-out show at First Avenue in Minneapolis last night, stopped by the studios of Minnesota Public Radio's 89.3 The Current while in town for the tour launch. He spoke about Iron and Wine's recently released Nonesuch debut album, Ghost on Ghost, and performed intimate solo takes on three songs off the new album: "Caught in the Briars," "Grace for Saints and Ramblers," and "Winter Prayers." You can watch the performances of the latter two songs here.

The Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show takes place at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville tonight and will include performances from 2013 multiple nominees Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, as well as Dr. John and others. Tune in to watch all the action as the show is broadcast live on AXS TV starting at 8 PM ET; it will also stream live online via Folk Alley and NPR Music. Harris has been nominated for Artist of the Year, and, with Rodney Crowell, Album of the Year and Duo/Group of the Year for their album Old Yellow Moon. 

Iron and Wine, whose Nonesuch debut album, Ghost on Ghost, was released this past spring to critical acclaim, kicks off the first leg of its North American fall tour with a sold-out show at First Avenue in Minneapolis tonight. Singer-songwriter Sam Beam and his 12-piece band head next to Canada for five shows in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, before returning to the States to play Fargo, Des Moines, Madison, and Chicago, and back up to Toronto. The tour picks up again on the West Coast at the end of October.

Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert for Kate McGarrigle, the feature documentary directed by Lian Lunson, is now available on iTunes via the Sundance Institute’s Artist Services program. The film captures the 2011 NYC concerts honoring McGarrigle, with performances from Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Kate's sister Anna, and friends like Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, and Antony. Nonesuch Records released a two-CD set with highlights from the NYC tribute concerts and those held in London and Toronto after McGarrigle died of sarcoma; proceeds from the album benefit the Kate McGarrigle Foundation for sarcoma research.

Rokia Traoré's new album, Beautiful Africa, is due out September 24, in the US, following its critically acclaimed international release earlier this year. But no need to wait till then to hear it. The album is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. "Beautiful Africa is just as smart and lovely as its creator," says NPR Music's Anastasia Tsioulcas. Rokia Traoré kicks off her North American tour at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in November.

Devendra Banhart and his band will tour Latin America in November. The tour kicks off with two previously announced nights at El Plaza Condesa in Mexico City November 8 (sold out) and 9, followed by four nights in Brazil, shows in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Peru, and a set at the Primavera Fauna festival in Chile. Banhart has also unveiled a remix of "Golden Girls," the opening track off of his Nonesuch Records debut album, Mala, by German pianist/composer Hauschka. The track premiered on Pitchfork earlier today. You can hear it and download it for free here.

k.d. lang will make her Broadway debut in the new musical After Midnight beginning February 11, 2014 (and continuing through March 9, 2014). Tickets for her engagement go on sale November 4, 2013. Refracted through a contemporary lens, After Midnight will celebrate Duke Ellington’s years at the Cotton Club using his original arrangements and performed by a big band of 17 musicians hand-picked by Wynton Marsalis. After Midnight is a new production of Cotton Club Parade which played two sold-out engagements at City Center. 

Ry Cooder’s first live record in more than 35 years, Live in San Francisco, is out now. The album, produced by Cooder, was recorded in 2011 during a special two-night engagement with the Corridos Famosos band and a ten-piece Mexican brass band at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, and includes original songs and interpretations of other material from across his career. "One of those nights when you wish you’d been in Row A," says the Sunday Times of London. Guitarist magazine calls it "sublime, spirited slide 'n' soul from a past-master of the art."

Bombino has performed an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, the 300th episode in the series of intimate sets at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, featuring three songs from his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad. Boilen praises his "fierce, hypnotic guitar playing" and "amazing jams." Watch the performance here. Bombino, currently touring Europe, will launch the next leg of his US tour in November.

Stephen Sondheim, who was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal in August, discussed the award and much more on PBS NewsHour last night. While at The MacDowell Colony to receive the award last month, the composer spoke with Jeffrey Brown, NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown about the honor and the danger of resting on one's laurels. Writer Frank Rich, who was the chairman of the medal selection committee, tells the show: "I'd argue that he single-handedly has kept the musical theater in a serious place." Watch the PBS NewsHour feature here.