Girls of the Golden West, John Adams’ eighth music theater work to be released by Nonesuch, is due April 26. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon. You can hear the aria "Wagon Ride," featuring Davóne Tines and Julia Bullock, now. For the opera, which tells the story of the California Gold Rush, longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the era—letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics—to create the libretto. The cast also includes Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny.

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The fifth and final playlist, featuring music Kronos performed in its fifth decade, 2013–2022, is out now. It includes music from their album A Thousand Thoughts; Folk Songs, with vocals by Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Natalie Merchant, and Rhiannon Giddens; their Grammy-winning collaboration with Laurie Anderson, Landfall; and Terry Riley's Sun Rings. You can hear it here.

Vagabon (aka Laetitia Tamko) stopped by for the Nonesuch Selects video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. She chose music by Jonny Greenwood, Sam Gendel, Yussef Dayes, and Rostam, as well as her own new album, Sorry I Haven't Called. You can watch it here.

Pianist Jeremy Denk was on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters on Saturday to talk with presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch ahead of his performance of the complete Bach Partitas at Wigmore Hall in London that night. "Inevitably when I practice, I don't say that I'm doing this, but I kind of take the piece apart and ask myself why every part is there," Denk says. "You don't want to say you're going into the mind of the composer, but you do a little bit. And then I like to feel that every part is justified, that I can make sense of it for myself." You can hear their conversation here.

Vagabon stopped by Amoeba Music in San Francisco for a shopping trip and a chat for Amoeba’s What’s in My Bag? series, in which she picks up music by Manu Dibango, Earl Sweatshirt, Janet Jackson, Nakibembe Embaire Group, The Friends of Distinction, Stevie Wonder, Lauryn Hill, Solange, Ali Farka Touré, and Aphex Twin. You can take a look inside and hear what she has to say about her picks here.

Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra)'s new album, The Past Is Still Alive, is out now. Segarra made the album during a period of personal grief, when they found inspiration in radical poetry, railroad culture, outsider art, the work of writer Eileen Myles, and activist groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury. Segarra uses their lyrics as a way to immortalize and say goodbye to those they have loved and lost, and to honor both the heartbroken and the hopeful parts of themselves. "Segarra has created an epic tale of life on the road, a nearly mythic version of their own life story that stands alongside other great American musical travelogues," exclaims NPR Music. "Career-defining." Rolling Stone says: "Segarra has honed their craft into a cohesive, astonishingly realized singer-songwriter record ... the best batch of songs Segarra's ever written." Paste calls it "a celebratory measure of love, sanctuary, and defiance ... In their hands, the trauma of the present day is a prelude to the possibilities of a better tomorrow."

Hurray for the Riff Raff, aka Alynda Segarra, who celebrates Friday's release of their new album, The Past Is Still Alive, with the launch of a months-long headline tour in New Orleans on Sunday, will join Norah Jones on her North American tour this summer. The nine-city run starts in Colorado with shows at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail and Red Rocks in Morrison on July 22 and 23, respectively, followed by stops in Utah, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon, culminating in San Francisco August 3. 

Congratulations to Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, who won the International Folk Music Awards' Album of the Year for City of Gold, which had also won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and to Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra), who received the International Folk Music Awards 2024 People’s Voice Award, presented to "an individual who unabashedly embraces social and political commentary in their creative work and public careers," in a ceremony at the Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, last night.

Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie Joachim took part in an event at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC last night titled Creole Histories with novelist Edwidge Danticat and poet Canisia Lubrin, in which Joachim shared stories and songs from her new album, Ki moun ou ye. Prior to the event, she had curated a Spotify playlist for MoMA of songs that connect to the creation of the album, with music by Björk, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and others. You can hear it here. 

Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) has shared "Hawkmoon," a song from their new album, The Past Is Still Alive, out on Friday. It's a rebellious road song and stirring remembrance of the first trans woman they ever met: a poet, punk, and fellow traveler named Miss Jonathan. The track arrives with a heist film of a music video, shot along the desolate highways and dusty deserts of the small New Mexican town Tucumcari, starring Segarra and writer, actor, and musician Denny. You can watch the video, directed by Jeff Perlman, here.

"This song is about balancing all the intricate parts and many faces of self and womanhood and the feelings of doubt that come from containing these multitudes," The Staves say of "I'll Never Leave You Alone," the new song from the upcoming album, All Now. "It’s about learning to navigate and live with them. To make friends with your doubt and with yourself." The Staves conclude their tour as special guests of Nickel Creek in Jacksonville tonight and begin their own US headline tour in Washington, DC, on April 7.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2024–25 season, including the Met premiere of John Adams's latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, on May 12, 2025. The adaptation of Shakespeare’s drama stars soprano Julia Bullock, following her company debut in Adams’s El Niño this April, as Cleopatra, opposite bass-baritone Gerald Finley’s Antony. Adams himself conducts a new staging by director Elkhanah Pulitzer, who transports the story from ancient Rome to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s. Performances run through June 7, 2025.