John Adams and the London Symphony Orchestra gave the UK premiere of his Doctor Atomic Symphony at Barbican Hall Sunday; they perform the European premiere of his City Noir Thursday. The Times (UK) gives Sunday's "extraordinarily compelling" performance four stars, exclaiming that, with Doctor Atomic Symphony, Adams "has created a truly explosive 25-minute piece in which the listener is rocked by a sense of the compacted moral and physical turbulence of the original opera." The Evening Standard gives it four stars as well, calling it "Adams at his heart-on-sleeve best."

John Adams returns to the Barbican in London this weekend for John Adams Focus. He introduces a screening of the film Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic, followed by the UK premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony, with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Next week, Adams will lead the LSO in the European premiere of City Noir, which, he writes in the Times, is "an imaginary film score, a musical study in cinematic colours and jazz-inflected energy."

Emmylou Harris will join Dave Matthews and a host of guest performers at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on May 19 for the Music Saves Mountains  concert, presented by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The concert aims to raise awareness about mountaintop removal coal mining and its consequences for Appalachia. Also performing will be two of Harris's frequent touring partners, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller.

To coincide with the Nonesuch release of Natalie Merchant’s new album, Leave Your Sleep, on April 13, Merchant has announced a European tour in May—her first in eight years—including seven previously announced dates in the UK and now an additional seven dates in Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Paris. The limited-edition, signed print of Merchant available exclusively with Nonesuch Store orders has now been extended to an additional 500 prints. [Update: These, too, are now sold out.]

The San Francisco Symphony has announced its 2010-11 season, which will feature the return of composer John Adams as a featured composer. Adams will conduct the SFS in multiple performances of El Niño starring Dawn Upshaw this December. Also part of the focus on Adams: an SFS performance of Harmonielehre, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and an all-Adams chamber music concert featuring members of the orchestra.

The Black Keys are set to release their sixth full-length album, Brothers, May 18 on Nonesuch Records. The band recorded the bulk of the album at Alabama's legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with additional sessions at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound System in Akron and The Bunker in Brooklyn. The Black Keys will support Brothers with a tour that includes a sold out performance at Central Park’s SummerStage in New York in July.

Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant's first studio album since 2003, is due out April 13 on Nonesuch Records and is now available for pre-order. This release is the culmination of six years of research and collaboration and is, in her words, “The most elaborate project I have ever completed or even imagined.” In a Nonesuch Store exclusive, the first 500 orders are available with a limited-edition, signed print of Merchant. [Update: These prints are no longer available.]

As the world's Olympic athletes bid farewell to Canada, Wilco too will soon say adieu as the band's TransCanada Tour concludes this week. The next leg of the tour begins soon, and new dates have just been added to the European tour in September. Before then, Glenn Kotche will join Mario Batali for an event to benefit eighth blackbird. And a song from Wilco's 2009 tour stop at Bonnaroo is available for free with your support of the current climate change bill.

The Magnetic Fields have been in the Pacific Northwest all week performing for sold-out crowds in Portland and Seattle. Seattle Weekly called the first Seattle show "a night filled with uncommonly brilliant artistry." The band heads next to the Bay Area for two Noise Pop festival shows in Oakland and San Francisco, a DJ set from Stephin Merritt at Amoeba, and a sneak preview of the documentary on the band, Strange Powers.

The Low Anthem began its ten-city tour with The Avett Brothers last night at Ohio University. The band is the subject of a feature article in the Boston Phoenix, on the front cover of the Providence Phoenix, giving a tour of the pasta sauce factory where they're recording their new album and a taste of what's to come, with a song the paper calls "a jaw-dropper ... complete with a rumbling finale unlike anything in the TLA catalog."

Today marks the start of the Carolina Chocolate Drops' US tour, featuring music from the band's Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, which landed at No. 1 on Billboard's Bluegrass chart. "To paraphrase Rakim’s immortal words," says Paste, "these Drops ain’t no joke." They are, in a phrase, "the genuine article." There's also a Q&A with band members in North Carolina's Yes! Weekly and a recent appearance on BBC Radio 3's World on 3.

The 2010 South by Southwest festival is set to get under way March 12 through 21 in Austin, Texas, with a number of Nonesuch artists—The Low Anthem, Christina Courtin, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops—have already been tapped to perform. Also, SXSW will screen Ride, Rise, Roar, a new concert film following David Byrne on his 2008-09 tour The Songs of David Byrne & Brian Eno.