The Staves will join Nickel Creek as special guests on tour of the US Midwest and South in February. The two-week tour kicks off in Iowa City on February 6, with stops in Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Florida. As the Nickel Creek's tour continues, The Staves begin their own US headline tour on April 7, following the March 22 release of their album, All Now.

Congratulations to Laurie Anderson, who has been named one of the Recording Academy’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Awards honorees. The award will be presented to Anderson and her fellow honorees—Gladys Knight, the Clark Sisters, N.W.A., and, posthumously, Donna Summer and Tammy Wynette—at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles during GRAMMY Week, on February 3. "The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients—a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide," said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. "Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds, and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community."

The second album from Grammy-nominated Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie Joachim, Ki moun ou ye, is due February 16 on Nonesuch / New Amsterdam Records. On the album, Joachim takes listeners through an intimate collection of music that ponders its title’s question: “Who are you?” Inspired by the remote Caribbean farmland that her family continues to call home after seven generations and performed in both English and Haitian Creole, the work examines the richness of one’s voice—an instrument that brings with it DNA, ancestry, and identity—in a vibrant tapestry of Joachim’s voice, and intricately sampled vocal textures underscored by an acoustic instrumental ensemble. Ki moun ou ye draws upon the voice’s historic and ongoing role as a tool for survival, healing, preservation of self, fellowship, and an affirmation of freedom.

"Rhiannon Giddens is currently carving out her own impressive legacy," Christiane Amanpour says on PBS's Amanpour and Company. "She's the singer, songwriter, banjo player, fiddler, and actress who keeps adding strings to her bow." Giddens is on the show to talk with Walter Isaacson about her Grammy-nominated new album, You're the One, and what Amanpour calls "her unstoppable career." You can watch their conversation here.

Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has received critical acclaim since its release in December, including being named among the year's best by the New York Times, Jazzwise, and the Irish Times, which says: "Akinmusire is a generational talent ... From the first notes of the opening title track you know you are in a place of great beauty." DownBeat says: "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023 ... This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time." The Wall Street Journal says: "It sounds like a tiny, joyous celebration ... Gorgeous details abound." The Financial Times calls him "the standout trumpeter of his generation" and says: "The one-off ensemble becomes a heavenly match." Record Collector says: "Akinmusire opens a fresh chapter in his career with the quietly magnificent Owl Song, arguably his most accomplished recording yet."

As 2023 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of what we hope will be a happy, healthy new year, it's time to take a look back and remember all of the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists over the past year. Many Nonesuch artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made year's best lists and are up for Grammy Awards. So here, in words and music and in chronological order, is a look back at the year in Nonesuch music, in gratitude.

"When I interviewed David Byrne in November, I enjoyed it so much that when the interview was over, I asked if he'd consider returning before Christmas to play some of his favorite Christmas recordings," Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air, says on today's show. "I am very grateful that he said yes ... I consider David Byrne's return to our show a great Christmas gift for all of us." Byrne offers a Christmas playlist with his own seasonally appropriate song and others by Gaby Moreno, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, James Brown, Prince, Paul Simon, The Staples Singers, Neko Case, and more. You can hear their conversation and the playlist here.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Yussef Dayes closes out a year in which his debut solo album, Black Classical Music, received critical acclaim and landed on several year's best lists, with the release of A Colors Show, in which he performs "Chasing the Drum" from the new album. You can watch it here.

Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch Records debut album, Owl Song, is out now. The album, featuring a trio with two musicians Akinmusire has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has landed on the New York Times’ list of Best Jazz Albums of 2023 and on Jazzwise’s Albums of the Year list. Uncut says: "This is subtly profound music, full of meditative, focused beauty." "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023," says DownBeat's five-star review. "This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time.”

Portuguese singer and songwriter Carminho has released “O quarto (fado Menor),” the full version of the song she performs live in a scene with Emma Stone in Poor Things, the new film by Yorgos Lanthimos. The scene depicts Carminho singing the fado and playing the Portuguese guitar to a mesmerized Bella Baxter, Stone’s character in the film, which also stars Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo and has been nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards. You can watch the video for the track here.

The original cast album of Adam Guettel’s Broadway musical Days of Wine and Roses, with a book by Craig Lucas, starring Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, is out digitally today; the CD is due in the spring. This searing musical is based on the 1962 film and original 1958 teleplay of the same name, about a couple falling in love in 1950s New York and struggling against themselves to build their family. Days of Wine and Roses marks the reunion of Guettel and Lucas, who last collaborated on the six-time Tony Award–winning musical The Light in the Piazza. “Repeated listenings compound the amazement,” the New York Times says of Guettel’s work, which “has always offered that kind of challenge—initially leaving a feeling of: Beautiful, but wait, I need to hear it again—and those up for it have a way of coming away shining like Moses down from the Mount. The new score has the same effect.”

"Beloved for her enthralling narrative flair, impeccable vocal mastery, and passion for traversing an extensive spectrum of musical genres, Cécile McLorin Salvant is one of the few true reigning divas of jazz," Brian Levine says of his guest on The Gould Standard in the second in a two-part interview. "But her creativity, curiosity, and wayfaring imagination take her well beyond the boundaries of any one style or genre of expression." You can watch part two of their conversation here.