As 2012 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of 2013, it's time to take a look back and remember all the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists this year. Many of these artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made music critics' and fans' year-end best lists; several were nominated for Grammy Awards. Here is a look back.

Patrick Carney, drummer of The Black Keys, will host Serious Boredom, an exclusive show on SiriusXMU, channel 35, featuring Carney talking about and playing his favorite independent music, new and old, as well as music from his personal collection. The show premieres this Thursday, December 20, at 8 PM ET. New episodes will debut on the first Thursday of every month beginning in January 2013. "I'm excited about the show and the opportunity to host SiriusXMU’s Serious Boredom," says Carney. "I've wanted to do a DJ gig like this for a while now and am looking forward to being on air."

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rokia Traoré has a new album coming in the spring of 2013 on Nonesuch Records; it is the first time Nonesuch will release her record worldwide. Further details about the album and its release will be announced shortly, as will upcoming festival and tour dates. Traoré performs at the Sydney Festival in January. Pitchfork described her most recent record, 2009’s Tchamantché, as “a guitar album of a particularly understated bent ... hauntingly spare yet ridiculously well-defined, the timbre and tone of every string presented in perfect resolution.” And the BBC World Service called it “One of the best albums of the year. An absolute stunner.”

In 2005, Nonesuch released The McGarrigle Christmas Hour, in which sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle, their family—including Kate's children, Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright—and honorary family members, like Emmylou Harris, celebrated the holidays in song. That same year saw the start of a holiday tradition of live Christmas shows starring McGarrigles, Wainwrights, and many friends. The music-making continues with Rufus and Martha Wainwright’s Christmas 101, three concerts in Oakland and Los Angeles this week, featuring appearances from Harris, Maria Muldaur, and Van Dyke Parks. Proceeds go to the Kate McGarrigle Fund, which is dedicated to research for a cure for sarcoma, a rare and deadly cancer from which Kate McGarrigle passed away in 2010. 

The Black Keys are featured in an encore episode of Austin City Limits (ACL) airing Saturday, December 29, 2012, on PBS stations across the United States. The episode, which originally aired in October 2010, is a prescient indicator of things to come as the band brings raw energy and steel-belt grit to tracks from their 2010 breakout album Brothers in their ACL debut. The episode also features Sonic Youth. The Black Keys close out year with two performances at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.

Following the news that Randy Newman will be among the 2013 Inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Newman was featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The show opens with his solo piano-and-vocal recording of his classic tune "Political Science" from his 2003 Nonesuch debut album, Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1, and includes two past Fresh Air interviews. Newman, who has described the induction into the Hall of Fame as "a great honor," recently spoke with both Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines about that honor.

Fatoumata Diawara's debut album, Fatou, was released earlier this year to critical acclaim. Now comes the release of a new music video for the album track "Clandestin," which addresses issues of immigration. "They are called 'illegals,' but I call them warriors as it’s not easy to leave everything behind and to trust in the unknown. In Bambara, we call them nomads," says Diawara. "This song is dedicated to all the brothers who die on this trip and to those who have already left!" Watch the video here.

Just in time for the holidays, The Hard Nut, Mark Morris's 1991 retelling of the classic tale of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann, returns to the Bay Area for the first time in three years, with a seven-performance run at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California, starting tonight. The Mark Morris Dance Group will be joined by members of the Berkeley Symphony, led by conductor George Cleve, for the performances with the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir under the direction of Robert Geary. For the first time in Berkeley, Morris will take on the role of Dr. Stahlbaum/King. Watch a preview here.

Mandy Patinkin continued the holiday sing-along at The Colbert Report when he joined Stephen Colbert and REM's Michael Stipe to sing the traditional carol "Good King Wenceslas" on Comedy Central last night. Watch the performance here. The trio performance closed out an episode of the show in which Patinkin and Colbert engaged in a spirited discussion of his role as Saul Berenson on the hit Showtime series Homeland and much more. It also follows the previous night's duet between Colbert and Audra McDonald on "Baby It's Cold Outside."

Audra McDonald helped ring in the holiday season by joining Stephen Colbert to sing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” on The Colbert Report last night. Watch the performance here. As the recently named official host of the PBS series Live From Lincoln Center, McDonald will host seven broadcasts through spring 2013, starting with “The Richard Tucker Opera Gala” this Thursday, December 13, and including the New York Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve Gala, “One Singular Sensation: Celebrating Marvin Hamlisch,” on Monday, December 31, in which she will also perform.

Congratulations to Randy Newman, a 2013 Inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! "I’d like to thank the people who have supported me for all these years," says Newman. "It’s a great honor. I’m very happy about it." All inductees are ultimately represented in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on April 18, 2013, and broadcast on HBO at a later date.

London-based singer/songwriter Lianne La Havas returns to North America this spring for 18 headlining shows in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, and Nashville. Click here for tour dates; tickets go on sale December 14 unless otherwise noted. She appeared on NPR's World Cafe last Friday and recently performed her take on Jill Scott's "He Loves Me" for Yours Truly. The video for her Is Your Love Big Enough? album track "Lost & Found" has premiered in Centric's Hot 10; watch it here.