Rhiannon Giddens has joined with musician Amanda Palmer and author Neil Gaiman to create Art Is Alive, a new online resource guide to support artistic and creative freelance communities whose livelihoods have been so greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are hoping that this website can act as a kind of general yellow pages for the current money emergency in the art and music world," they say. "We like to call it our COVID-19 directory of give and take." Art Is Alive also offers a place for artists to interact, to share information as new events, new resources, and new ideas develop.

Yola was joined by her housemates, the members of Birds of Chicago, to perform a three-song set for Rolling Stone's new In My Room series from her home in Nashville. They perform an a cappella take on Etta James's "At Last" then pick up the instruments for Yola's "It Ain't Easier," from her album Walk Through Fire, and Birds of Chicago's own "Second Cousin." You can watch it here.

Devendra Banhart filmed a Son & Lumière session for Télérama while on tour in Paris earlier this year. He performed what Télérama calls "two pieces full of feeling that flow like honey," the songs "October 12" and "Carolina," from his new album, Ma, at the famed Parisian photography studios Studio Harcourt. You can watch the set here.

On May 22, Nonesuch releases I Still Play, an album of eleven new solo piano compositions by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, written in honor of the label’s longtime President Bob Hurwitz as he became Chairman Emeritus in 2017. The album features works by John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, and Randy Newman, performed by Andres, Mehldau, Newman, and Jeremy Denk. Pre-order to download Nico Muhly's "Move" played by Andres now; you can follow along on the score as you watch him perform it here.

More than 100 artists, arts leaders, and professors in the field have announced the New Music Solidarity Fund, an initiative that aims to grant emergency funding to musicians impacted by COVID-19. At the time of the announcement, more than $130,000 has been pledged. The fund will be administered through New Music USA, and all donations are fully tax-deductible through New Music USA’s 501c3 status. The fund will run until April 30.

The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunite with the July 10, 2020, release of RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing. The album features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade. A live version of Redman’s “Right Back Round Again” may be seen here, in a video directed by Matthew Beighley; the album version is available now. The band tours internationally this summer and fall.

Chris Thile performed on CBS This Morning: Saturday in a special socially distanced Saturday Sessions set. Thile performed two songs for not far from home, in The Bridge Studio in Brooklyn: a cover of Radiohead's "True Love Waits," his own "Laysong," and a piece by Bach. You can watch all three here.

Yola helped launch the Grammy Museum's new Museum at Home digital programming initiative when her October 2019 Q&A at the Los Angeles museum was released for the first time on Saturday. She talks about her life and music and the making of her debut album, Walk Through Fire. You can watch the conversation here.

Reasons to celebrate may be hard to come by these days, but the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim is certainly one of them. To mark the occasion, we've assembled all of the Sondheim songs and cast albums on Nonesuch recordings in one place, featuring Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Dawn Upshaw, Jonny Depp, Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Michael Cerveris, Raúl Esparza, Laura Benanti, Nathan Lane, Neil Patrick Harris, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Vanessa WIlliams, Alexander Gemignani, and more. "When his words go through my system," Patinkin tells the Guardian, "they rejuvenate my mind and soul to a point of reminding me what it is I am trying to be alive for."

Timo Andres was the first guest on a special Pirate Radio Edition of Living Music with Nadia Sirota, which took place from various homes via the show's Facebook page live. He performed "Wise Words," a piece he wrote for Nonesuch's own Bob Hurwitz, and Robin Holcomb's "Wherein Lies the Good," which she recorded on her 1996 Nonesuch album, Little Three. Both pieces were meant to be part of his Carnegie Hall recital debut in April, which was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. You can watch the episode here, and donate to support the show and its guests on Facebook.

Long before social distancing began, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi brought their world tour to The Royal Conservatory's Koernal Hall in Toronto last October. They were joined by bassist Jason Sypher to perform songs from their 2019 Nonesuch album there is no Other and more. The concert was captured via Livestream and can be seen in full here.

If there's a ray of sunlight to be found today, perhaps it's that it's that the vernal equinox has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. To mark the first day of spring, we've updated our Ring in Spring playlist of Nonesuch recordings as a soundtrack to the melting snows, blossoming trees, and hopefully healthier days soon to come. Here are some seasonally appropriate songs from David Byrne, Dave Malloy, Devendra Banhart, Jeff Parker, Pat Metheny, Caroline Shaw, Daughter of Swords, Early James, Yola, Mountain Man, Fleet Foxes, Conor Oberst, The Magnetic Fields, Kronos Quartet, Brad Mehldau, The Black Keys, Robert Plant, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris, Chris Thile, Allen Toussaint, Randy Newman, Caetano Veloso, Tigran Hamasyan, Mandy Patinkin, and more.