Stephen Sondheim will receive the 2017 PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award at PEN America's annual Literary Gala on April 25 in New York; Meryl Streep will present the prize. "Stephen Sondheim's oeuvre is profoundly literary in its elegiac reaching for the truth of who we are, how we love, and how we strive to locate meaning in our work," said Andrew Solomon, president of PEN America. "He will be the first composer-lyricist to receive this award, which recognizes his nuanced insight into human character. His support for a new generation of writers makes him a literary citizen of the first order."

John Adams has joined the faculty of the Royal Academy of Music in London as a Visiting Professor. In 2012, Adams conducted concerts at Lincoln Center and the BBC Proms in which Academy students performed alongside Juilliard School players; in 2015, the Academy gave him an Honorary Doctorate. As part of his new role, he returns to the Academy in 2017 to work with opera students, instrumentalists, and composers. "I'm proud and delighted to spend time with the very talented students of the Royal Academy of Music," he says. "I'll be able to spend time with the young composers, singers and instrumentalists in a relationship that is as fruitful for me as it hopefully will be for the students."

Rhiannon Giddens has unveiled a third song from her forthcoming album, Freedom Highway, called "Hey Bébé," which you can hear in a lyric video here. The song is one of nine original songs Giddens wrote or co-wrote on the album, which also includes a traditional tune and two civil rights–era songs. She co-wrote "Hey Bébé" with Dirk Powell, who co-produced the album with her. Download "Hey Bébé," "At the Purchaser's Option," and "Freedom Highway" now with pre-orders of the album.

The Nonesuch Blu-Ray/DVD of Alban Berg's Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera has been nominated for an International Opera Award for Recording (Complete Opera) of the Year. Also among the nominees are the production's conductor, Lothar Koenigs, for Conductor of the Year, and two of its performers, Johan Reuter and Martin Winkler, both for Male Singer of the Year. Winners will be announced in London on Sunday, May 7, 2017.

Audra McDonald will finally bring her Tony Award–winning portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill to London's West End with a fourteen-week run at Wyndham's Theatre starting June 17, 2017. The performances were postponed due to the happy arrival of McDonald's newborn daughter last year. Written by Robertson and directed by Lonny Price, the musical play opened on Broadway in 2014 to great acclaim, earning McDonald a record sixth Tony Award, an Outer Circle Critics Award, and a Drama Desk Award.

Richard Goode, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and conductor Iván Fischer tour the US with music from their Nonesuch recording of the complete Beethoven piano concertos for the first time. The all-Beethoven program, which varies from night to night, pairs either concerto No. 2 or 4 with two symphonies per night, from among No. 1, 5, 8, and 9. The concerts begin at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark this Saturday, followed by Lincoln Center in New York City, Chicago Symphony Center, Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium, and Boston Symphony Hall.

Tigran Hamasyan will begin a world tour ahead of the March 31 release of his new album, An Ancient Observer, starting with three nights at the Blue Whale in Los Angeles, February 25–27. The US leg of the tour continues with shows in Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Boston, and NYC. The European tour begins in Italy on March 17, with stops in Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Norway, Estonia, Switzerland, and Hamasyan's home country of Armenia. He heads to Japan in May and to Australia in June.

The Magnetic Fields have unveiled the video for "'83 Foxx and I," a song on the forthcoming album 50 Song Memoir. The song, which may be downloaded now with pre-orders of the album, is one of fifty on the five-disc set that chronicles the fifty years of songwriter Stephin Merritt's life with one song per year. The video was directed by Alex Basco Koch and produced by José Zayas for Ghost Corporeal. It was originally created for the Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir concert tour directed by Zayas. Watch it here.

Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau were the guests on NPR's World Cafe. They spoke with host David Dye and performed three songs from their just-released debut duo album together: Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," David Rawling and Gillian Welch's "Scarlet Town," and Elliott Smith's "Independence Day." "It is extraordinary," says host Dye of the new album. "Two players from different genres, bluegrass and jazz, further the thinking that genres are just not that important to improvisers." Find out what they had to say and hear the performances here.

The Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir, which chronicles the fifty years of songwriter Stephin Merritt's life with one song per year, is due March 10 on Nonesuch. Merritt spoke with writer Michael Hill about the project, from its conception over lunch (with Nonesuch's Bob Hurwitz) through the songwriting (nonfiction material making its first appearance in his work) to its recording (he sings vocals on all fifty songs and plays more than one hundred instruments).

Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, the debut duo album from the Nonesuch labelmates, is out now. At the end of 2015, the longtime admirers of each other's work played a two-night stand at NYC's Bowery Ballroom (videos from which you can watch here) before going into the studio to record the double album. "This meeting of two masters of their respective realms is a spine-tingling triumph," raves a five-star Irish Times review. The Guardian gives the album four stars, saying: "Two very different musicians hit a remarkable rapport on this double album." The four-star BBC Music Magazine review says "the vivid dynamic really puts a bright face on this mix of original and old song covers from across the jazz, folk and country spectrum." 

The line-up for the 2017 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest, has been announced, and among this year's artists are Rhiannon Giddens and Lake Street Dive, both performing on Friday, May 5. Jazz Fest runs over seven days across two weekends, April 28–30 and May 4–7. Also among the performers at this year's Jazz Fest are Wilco, Dr. John, and several contributors to the 2005 benefit album Our New Orleans.