The Carolina Chocolate Drops are collaborating on their first theater piece, which will be performed at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music this November. Keep a Song in Your Soul: The Black Roots of Vaudeville was commissioned by Old Town and explores songs written and performed by African Americans between 1830 and 1930. The band is working with jazz composer-pianist Reginald R. Robinson and the Old Town School's Reggio "The Hoofer" Laughlin on the production. Bandmember Dom Flemons tells the Willamette Week, “There’s so much stuff that people just don’t know about in terms of music ... we want to reach back and grab that stuff and make it live again.”

The cover art for The Black Keys’ 2010 breakthrough album Brothers, along with its designer, Michael Carney, was praised for its simple power in a New York Times article about a new trend in the music industry to use designs that stand out on digital devices. The band performed a blistering set at San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival this weekend, "dominating the stage with its energetic, classic rock ’n’ roll," according to the SF Examiner.

Steve Reich, who performed at London's Royal Albert Hall earlier this week for the BBC Proms, is the subject of the Guardian's latest Music Weekly podcast. In an extensive audio interview, Reich discusses works from throughout his career, beginning with his latest, WTC 9/11. "This is the first time that the show has featured a contemporary classical composer," says the Guardian, "but Reich's influence on a number of Music Weekly favourites such as Radiohead, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Brian Eno, Sufjan Stevens and Battles is huge."

Composer Steve Reich comments on his forthcoming Nonesuch Records release, featuring his piece WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet, and the album cover.

While all four physical version of Björk's forthcoming Biophilia album—on CD, vinyl, and two custom-made editions—may be pre-ordered in North America in the Nonesuch Store, today, August 11, is the last day to order the custom-made versions: the Biophilia Manual, which presents the music on two CDs in a 48-page hardbound, cloth-covered, thread-sewn book, and the Ultimate Art Edition, which includes the Manual along with 10 chrome-plated tuning forks, each representing the tone of a track on the album, all in a lacquered and silkscreened oak hinged-lid case.

Steve Reich performed at London's Royal Albert Hall last night as part of an all-Reich program with Ensemble Modern for the BBC Proms. The concert is now available online. "There could be no better way of celebrating Steve Reich’s 75th birthday than with a performance of his Music for 18 Musicians," says the Independent in its five-star review, "and the packed hall for this late-night Prom testified to the size and devotion of his fan-club." The Guardian says the concert helped mark Reich's "ongoing acceptance into the pantheon of the greats of the western classical tradition."

Jessica Lea Mayfield launches a late-summer US tour that will include headlining dates, summer festivals, a supporting set with John Prine, and a double bill with label mates Punch Brothers. The tour kicks off tonight when she headlines a show at Mohawk Place in Buffalo, New York, and continues with additional stops in upstate New York, Vermont, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Indiana, Tennessee, Illinois, and California. Consequence of Sound says that "seeing Mayfield live makes you understand her songs even better."

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free annual outdoor music festival held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, returns for its 11th run this September 30 through October 2. The line-up has now been announced and include four Nonesuch artists: perennial favorite Emmylou Harris, returning performers Punch Brothers and Jessica Lea Mayfield, and, making their Hardly Strictly debut, The Low Anthem.

Steve Reich performs at London's Royal Albert Hall tonight as part of an all-Reich program with Ensemble Modern for the BBC Proms. The concert, which marks the composer's 75th birthday year, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3. "His work using looped taped voices was not only original," writes the Guardian, "but created stunning, fluid sounds which still impress today ... In a Proms season that contains many treasures, Reich's performance ... stands out." MusicOMH gives Reich's forthcoming album four stars, calling its WTC 9/11 "a stark and fascinating addition to his oeuvre."

Laurie Anderson gives a free performance at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell in NYC tonight for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors series. "Often imitated but never duplicated, Anderson is the beatific mother of downtown avant-garde performance art," says the Village Voice. "She practices the dying art of enchantment, insidiously propagating a politically charged message through trance-inducing electronic mantras." The concert also features fiddler/composer Todd Reynolds with Carolina Chocolate Drops beat boxer Adam Matta and Luminescent Orchestrii's Sxip Shirey. Time Out New York names the show a critics' pick.

Björk continues to roll out Biophilia with today's release of the "Virus" single and as a special feature on the Biophilia App, both available exclusively through iTunes. The app feature is part musical instrument, part sonic artwork, and part scientifically informed educational animation. SPIN calls "Virus" the album's "most intimate song yet," adding that "never has a song about human ailment sounded so seductive or beautiful." Björk discusses the project on the BBC World Service's The Strand. The two custom-made editions of the Biophilia album must be ordered by the end of the day this Thursday, August 11.

Stephen Sondheim has been named the recipient of the 2011 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement and will accept the award at the Chicago Humanities Festival in November. "'Writing' seems an inadequate word to describe what Stephen Sondheim has done," suggests the Tribune, "yet it is the breadth, impact and influence of his writing that have won him" the award. Marquette University has established the Stephen Sondheim Research Collection after acquiring a vast collection of materials relating to his works from a co-founder of The Sondheim Review.