Carolina Chocolate Drops, whose new album, Leaving Eden, was release on vinyl yesterday, are featured in a new piece on PBS Newshour's Art Beat that examines the roots of their music. Watch the piece here along with a recent performance at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Carolina Chocolate Drops "push an appreciation of home grown songs into brand new territory," explains The Morton Report. "It's not unlike jazz musicians who take popular music into the stratosphere. Carolina Chocolate Drops have essentially erased the rulebook and allowed freedom to become their watchword."

Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd opened at London's Adelphi Theatre last night, a West End transfer of the acclaimed Chichester Festival production, directed by Jonathan Kent. The production, starring Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball, opened to rave reviews, earning five stars from the Guardian, which calls it "a superb achievement," and the Times of London, which calls it "an absolute bleedin' triumph." The Daily Telegraph says Sweeney Todd is "Stephen Sondheim’s best show and one of the greatest musicals of all time." Earlier this month in London, Sondheim was awarded the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Services to the Arts.

The Brad Mehldau Trio’s new album, Ode, with 11 previously unreleased songs composed by Mehldau, is out now. The album is "full of seductive melody, and in its blues and bop references and surging swing, it's explicitly jazzy, too," says the Guardian in a four-star review. "It bears a lot of replaying." The Observer calls the new songs "absorbing," noting that "Mehldau is so brilliant at 'recomposing' standards that his remarkable talent as a composer is often overlooked." The Ottawa Citizen says: "A potent combination of deep lyricism, questing creativity and bar-raising virtuosity, Ode consistently provides the frissons that Mehldau fans have come to expect and that lesser pianists wish they could evoke."

Punch Brothers' new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, is now available on vinyl. The LP comes on two discs of 140-gram, audiophile-quality vinyl and includes four additional Punch Brothers–penned tunes available exclusively on the vinyl album. To celebrate the CD's release last month, Punch Brothers gave a special invitation-only record-release show at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City; watch three songs from the set here: "Movement and Location," "Clara," and "Who's Feeling Young Now?"

The Low Anthem will support Feist on her US tour this spring, the Canadian singer-songwriter announced today. The band will join Feist for four shows in the Midwest in June, making stops in Minneapolis, Madison, Ann Arbor, and Columbus. Ticket on-sale dates and details are still to come. Today's news follows an unforgettable week of collaborations for The Low Anthem with The Chieftains and a SXSW set with Bruce Springsteen.

The film The Hunger Games is due out this week and with it a companion album, The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond, out today. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, features songs inspired by the film by artists like Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Taylor Swift, The Decemberists, and three Nonesuch artists: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and The Low Anthem. "Burnett has managed to create a deftly meditative soundtrack to the movie adaption of the best-selling book," says The Huffington Post, "bringing together big names and indie darlings of all stripes."

The Black Keys take their North American arena tour to Chicago for a performance at the United Center tonight. At Friday's show at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, "11,000 attendees rallied around Auerbach's flawless and precise solos and Carney's caveman beats," says the Indianapolis Star. Auerbach tells the Chicago Tribune: "There’s something about those old arenas, where it feels larger than life. It’s like walking into a (big-league) baseball or basketball game, it’s on a different level, and I love that.” At the same time, he tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "We don't change anything, whether we're playing on a small stage or a big stage."

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, launched its creators to international success when it was first produced in Avignon, France, in 1976. Now, nearly four decades after it was first performed and 20 years since its last production, Einstein on the Beach returns to France with performances at the Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum in Montpellier this weekend, launching an international tour that will head to Italy, London, Toronto, Brooklyn, Berkeley, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong. Watch the official trailer here.

The Low Anthem, having performed on The Late Show with David Letterman with The Chieftains earlier this week, continued a week of stellar collaborations when it joined Bruce Springsteen, members of Arcade Fire, Tom Morello, Alejandro Escovedo, and others on stage for SXSW at The Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, last night for a powerful and moving rendition of Woody Guthrie's classic tune "This Land Is Your Land." Backstreets was there and captured the unforgettable finale; watch it here.

Ry Cooder has been nominated as Best Artist in the Songlines Music Awards 2012 for his latest album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Fatoumata Diawara has been nominated as Newcomer of the Year for her debut album, Fatou, released in the UK on World Circuit; her debut EP, Kanou, was released on World Circuit/Nonesuch Records. Among the nominees for Cross-Cultural Collaboration are Kronos Quartet (Uniko) and Chris Thile, for his work with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer on The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

The Brad Mehldau Trio returns with Ode, out this week in the UK and this coming Tuesday in North America. Ode earns five-stars from the Daily Telegraph, which says it "shows his inventive powers are as fresh as ever," and the Financial Times, which calls it "benchmark piano-trio jazz." The BBC raves: "All three players are articulating a ceaseless stream of fresh ideas throughout this electrically energised session." MusicOMH calls it "an often scintillating and always joyful listen from beginning to end." Early US reviews agree. The New York Times finds "resonant lyricism, floating locomotion, a harmonic approach that brings depth to simple structures and sleekness to the more complex ones." The Chicago Tribune hears Mehldau "in prime form as composer, improviser and bandleader."

The Low Anthem joined The Chieftains in a performance of "School Days Over" on The Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday night, in celebration of the legendary Irish band's 50th anniversary. "The perfect way to celebrate their anniversary," says VH1, "the performance was filled with soul and reverence, and if you close your eyes, will take you back to a rolling, misty, fantastical landscape filled with magic." Watch the performance here. The groups perform in concert on NPR Music on Friday and at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, St. Patrick's Day. The Low Anthem plays its own set at SXSW tonight.