Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love premieres at BAM's Muslim Voices festival in June. "He lives so successfully by his convictions, and shows us a very different Islam than what we see in the media," the film's director tells New York. "And his voice is extraordinary. If you watch his band Super Etoile perform, you’ll follow them to the edge of the earth." Robert Cole, who is retiring from Cal Performances after 20-plus years at its helm, says: "Of the artists we've had relationships with, certainly Youssou N'Dour is one of the greatest." At a recent UN-led World Malaria Day event, N'Dour and Malaria No More launched a campaign to encourage the use of mosquito nets in Senegal and help prevent the spread of the disease.

Stephen Sondheim is the subject of a profile in Time magazine, which suggests that there won't be another like him any time soon, "not because high-brow musical theater is dead, but because the old Sondheim keeps on being new." The article looks at new productions of the composer's works as well as new works from Sondheim, like Road Show, to explain his enduring power. Director Trevor Nunn compares Sondheim to Shakespeare. "As with Shakespeare," he tells Time, "there's heightened poetic expression in Sondheim, but when you dig into it, you find it's in touch with something real." Time concludes: "He occupies a place in the pantheon not of musical theater, but of theater itself."

Coraline, the new musical featuring music by Stephin Merritt and based on the Neil Gaiman horror/children's book, opens in previews tonight at New York's MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel. Merritt spoke with the Village Voice for an extensive article about the play. "Since the earliest Magnetic Fields albums," says the Voice, "critics have drawn comparisons between Merritt's songwriting and that of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin ... So it seemed only a matter of time before he would imitate those idols and write for the stage."

Dawn Upshaw was in Boston yesterday for a performance with pianist Gilbert Kalish at Jordan Hall of works by a wide variety of composers, from Ravel to Golijov. Upshaw, with her ability to transform whatever she chooses to perform "into a soul-rattling artistic experience," is the subject of an extensive feature profile in the Boston Globe that describes her as "one of the most significant and dramatically moving singers before the public today ... Upshaw's rare gift as a performer is an ability to inhabit a work on the most profound levels, to live the music on stage rather than sing it at you."

In a week that brought big news from Wilco about their forthcoming studio album's Nonesuch release, there's now more good news from the band: They're offering fans a new recording of Woody Guthrie's Depression Era song "Jolly Banker," on their site, with 100% of the suggested donation going to support the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives. Jeff Tweedy tells American Public Media's Marketplace how Guthrie's words, even seven decades later, still resonate, and how the band got to see an all-too-rare side of America while on the tour documented in their new concert film, Ashes of American Flags.

Rokia Traoré and Amadou & Mariam have been announced the winners of the inaugural Songlines Music Awards, created by Songlines magazine to recognize outstanding talent in world music. Rokia has won the Best Artist award, and Amadou & Mariam have been named Best Group. "This Songlines Award means a lot to me," says Rokia, "not just because it comes from a magazine I respect and one that has always been supportive of my music, but also because at this stage in my career it is an honor to still be recognized for my continued efforts to make my music better."

Voltaic, a very special CD/LP/DVD project from Björk, is set to be released in the US by Nonesuch Records on June 30, 2009. Available in five different physical configurations, it is a lovingly packaged celebration of the past two years of Björk’s Volta activities—her critically praised sixth studio album, which came out in 2007, and the subsequent two-year world tour. Voltaic serves as a coda to Volta, an album about which NME said “Volta is a thunderous return as enchanting as Debut,’’ while Q described it as “the best album that Björk has done in a decade—a reminder of what a vital force she is.”

Wilco has completed work on their forthcoming album, due out June 30 on Nonesuch Records, and, after much anticipation, it now comes complete with a title: Wilco (the album). "There’s a little something for everyone on the group’s new disc," says Rolling Stone. Wilco's performance at the New Orleans JazzFest last weekend was their last US gig till June, and, says Rolling Stone, "The band presented its friendliest, most rootsy face ... Throughout, the band’s movement from a whisper to a screech happened organically." "The fresh air favors Wilco," reports the Times-Picayune. "Jeff Tweedy and company delivered thrilling, nuanced sets ... [and] stamped an exclamation point on ... the day."

John Adams has been honored with the 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors. "This award represents the greatest honor our nation bestows in opera, and recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States and have become cultural treasures of the nation," says the NEA. Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, will receive its Canadian premiere with the Vancouver Opera next March for the Cultural Olympiad 2010. Also included in the Olympic Games' arts celebration are performances by Kronos Quartet and by Laurie Anderson.

Stephen Sondheim, in London recently for Trevor Nunn's revival of A Little Night Music, sat down for a revealing interview with The Times, which calls him "a one-off all right, a Colossus bestriding the second half of the 20th century." The composer was celebrated last night at a Washington, DC, gala concert, starring Bernadette Peters and Michael Cerveris, to benefit the Signature Theatre and inaugurate its Sondheim Award.

Nonesuch Records will release the self-titled label debut from singer-songwriter Christina Courtin on June 23. The New York Times says Courtin’s voice “feels uniquely otherworldly, as if it couldn’t possibly be entirely human born.” The album is co-produced by Courtin, a graduate of The Juilliard School; jazz bassist Greg Cohen; and her frequent band mate singer/guitarist Ryan Scott. Cohen and Scott also contribute bass and guitar to the recording. Several  acclaimed musicians join them, including keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Jim Keltner, pedal-steel player Greg Leisz, Punch Brothers violinist Gabe Witcher, and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion.

Terry Riley's groundbreaking Minimalist masterwork In C turns a remarkable 45 years young this year. To celebrate, Kronos Quartet has gathered about 60 performers, many of whom participated in the piece's premiere in San Francisco in 1964, to join them and the composer to perform the work in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium for the first time. Playbill calls the piece "the minimalist musical be-in that altered the course of music history." New York magazine says, "Carnegie Hall’s extravaganza should yield a rich, polychrome stew of sound."