President Barack Obama has named composer Stephen Sondheim a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The medals will be presented in a ceremony at The White House Tuesday evening. "I look forward to presenting these 17 distinguished Americans with our nation’s highest civilian honor," says President Obama. "From public servants who helped us meet defining challenges of our time to artists who expanded our imaginations, from leaders who have made our union more perfect to athletes who have inspired millions of fans, these men and women have enriched our lives and helped define our shared experience as Americans."

Today marks the release of Junun, the new album from composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, and the Rajasthan Express, a group of Indian musicians. Recorded earlier this year in a makeshift studio inside the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India, the album was made with Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich. The album comprises Ben Tzur’s compositions, which feature devotional Sufi qawwal musicians who sing in Urdu as well as in his native Hebrew. "One of the most inspired releases of the year," exclaims the Sunday Times of London. "Intriguing, sinuous, and essential listening." Also out today on iTunes: Paul Thomas Anderson's film documenting the recording. Watch an outtake from the film featuring the song "Hu" here.

Rokia Traoré's sixth album, Né So (Home), will be released by Nonesuch Records on February 12, 2016. The album was produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Tracy Chapman), who also produced her 2013 record, Beautiful Africa. Né So features guest performances by John Paul Jones, Toni Morrison, and Traoré's labelmate Devendra Banhart, along with Burkinabe drummer Moïse Ouattara, Ivorian bassist Matthieu N'guessan, long-time collaborator Malian ngoni player Mamah Diabaté, guitarists Rodriguez Vangama and Stefano Pilia. The album, which features 10 original songs and a cover of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," is available to preorder with an instant downloaded of the title track. Traoré has released a video of that track, which you can watch here. She will tour in support of Né So this spring.

Today marks the release of Punch Brothers' five-song EP The Wireless. The tracks were recorded during sessions for the band's T Bone Burnett–produced album The Phosphorescent Blues, which was released earlier this year to critical acclaim, and four of the tracks were included on the vinyl edition of the album. The Chicago Tribune called the album "a typical genre-busting melange of avant-roots music that fuses jazz instrumental chops and acoustic earthiness, Beach Boys harmonies and Debussy string dances, slinky acoustic rock songs and blues laments." The Wireless comprises four original compositions, including a song with words by Gabriel Kahane entitled "Sleek White Baby," plus a cover of Elliott Smith's "Clementine."

The Staves have been nominated for two UK Americana Awards: UK Album of the Year for If I Was and UK Song of the Year for the album track "Black & White." (You can watch a live take on "Black & White" here.) The awards will be presented to the winners at the inaugural UK Americana Awards show at St John at Hackney on Wednesday, February 3, 2016. The band will perform at the Firefly Festival in Delaware in June.

Laurie Anderson was a guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. She shares stories from her new film and album, Heart of a Dog. You can hear their conversation here. The film is now playing at theaters across the United States, opening at additional theaters this weekend in San Jose, San Francisco, Bethesda, Fayetteville, Seattle, and more.

Rhiannon Giddens has made a video performing Edith Piaf's beloved song "La Vie en Rose." "This is for Paris, and Beirut, and Kenya, and Charleston, and so many others; for countless innocent people devastated by terrorism—which is just a word for organized hatred and inhumanity," says Giddens. "We have to keep seeing the world in shades of rose—we have to keep hoping for peace and working for change and believing that with our art, our love, our knowledge, and most of all, our empathy and understanding for our fellow human beings, we can make a difference." You can watch it here.

Lake Street Dive, whose Nonesuch Records debut album, Side Pony, will be released on February 19, 2016, have just announced a three-week tour of Europe and the UK for April. The shows begin at the Trix Club in Antwerp on April 8 and includes stops in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, and the UK, culminating in a night at Whelans in Dublin on April 28. Tickets go on sale this Friday This tour follows the band's previously announced North American tour in February and March. Tickets for the North American tour go on sale on Thursday.

Brad Mehldau's new box set, 10 Years Solo Live, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. The show takes "a peek into the creative process of one of modern music’s most innovative thinkers," says host Ari Shapiro. "The set includes Mehldau's vivid reimaginings of works by the Beatles, Radiohead, Brahms, and Thelonius Monk," says reviewer Tom Moon. "That's a wide range of music, yet he never sounds out of his element ... [S]ome things come through right away: his fluid technique, his instinct for reframing melodies, his gift for spinning epic narratives out of shards and fragments. Here's what's most mind-blowing: he's doing this live, in the moment, unscripted, in front of an audience." Listen to the review here.

Brad Mehldau's new 10 Years Solo Live is now available as a four-CD box set and digitally. The set, which was first released as an eight-LP vinyl box set last month, is culled from 19 live recordings made over a decade of the pianist's European solo concerts and "contains some of the most impressive pianism he has captured on record," says the New York Times. He is "a player with a stunning virtuosity and daring ability to mine far reaches of improvisation," raves All About Jazz. This is "a beautiful release/box from a unique pianist who continually shows what the piano can do." "Brad Mehldau is a magician," exclaims Record Collector. "Hearing the pianist in full flow during a live performance is ... nothing less than an awe-inspiring experience."

Kronos Quartet and Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) will present its second-annual hometown music festival, Kronos Festival 2016: Explorer Series, at SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, February 4–7, 2016. The festival features seven concerts over four days connecting area audiences to a wide range of musical voices and traditions from around the world. With virtuoso pipa player Wu Man as its artist-in-residence, the festival includes more than a dozen works, including four world premieres, two US premieres, four West Coast premieres, and two SF premieres.

Lake Street Dive's Nonesuch Records debut album, Side Pony, will be released on February 19, 2016. The four band members worked with Nashville-based producer Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Secret Sisters) on the record, which is available to pre-order now with an instant download of the album track "Call off Your Dogs"; you can hear the track here. Tour dates to support Side Pony begin February 22 in Phoenix and include stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, New York, and more; tickets go on sale Thursday, November 19.