Louis Andriessen has won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his opera La Commedia, premiered in 2008. "I was born in a sidestreet by a small canal in the medieval centre of Utrecht," says the composer. "Believe me, 71 years later, getting the world-famous Grawemeyer Award for La Commedia seems to be completely unreal ... I am very grateful for the prize." At the Amsterdam premiere of La Commedia, the Sunday Times described the work as "the distillation of a lifetime’s creativity.” You can watch a short video preview of the Netherlands Opera premiere here.

Sara Watkins recently completed an extensive tour across the UK and Ireland, with her brother Sean on guitar. You can watch a video of highlights from the tour here. They will appear in the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles's production of Much Ado About Nothing, performing music by Lyle Lovett, starting this Wednesday, December 1, and running through December 19. Starring in the production are Helen Hunt as Beatrice and Tom Irwin as Benedick.

The Black Keys are celebrating both Black Friday and Record Store Day with the release of a special, limited-edition box set of their album Brothers to indie retailers and the Nonesuch Store. Included in the package are the original Brothers album on double 45 RPM vinyl and CD as well as a bonus 10” featuring six previously unreleased tracks recorded live in studio, and a limited-edition poster.

Stephen Sondheim celebrated his 80th birthday this past March, a momentous milestone that has been marked in many ways throughout the year, including two New York Philharmonic concerts at Lincoln Center. The New York Times called it "thrilling." That show, Sondheim! The Birthday Concert, is airing on PBS's Great Performances, starting tonight. David Hyde Pierce hosts a stellar cast, including Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, John McMartin, Michael Cerveris, Patti LuPone, Victoria Clark, Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch, and many others.

Harps and Angels, the new musical featuring the music and lyrics of Randy Newman, officially opened at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles this week and runs through December 22. Variety calls the play "a sure cure for wintertime blues ... a showcase for his whiskey-soaked melodies and incisive poetic gifts." The Hollywood Reporter says: "All in all, it's a journey as simple, complex, contradictory and confounding as life itself—just what you'd expect from a fellow with the temperament of Huck Finn and the soul of a poet."

Following the Barbican and Carnegie Hall celebrations of Steve Reich's latest works early next year, some of his most iconic works will be featured in the weeklong Sacrum Profanum festival taking place in Kraków, Poland, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In an introductory video seen here, Reich describes Sacrum Profanum as "one of the best new-music festivals in the world." Among the festival performers are Jonny Greenwood, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, and Bang on a Can.

Wanda Jackson and her forthcoming Jack White-produced album, The Party Ain't Over, are the subject of a feature article in the latest issue of American Songwriter magazine. "I don’t know too many female names in the rock and roll world that come before her," White says. "She put in that energy to take it someplace totally new," he says of Jackson and the new album. "It’s a testament to how much someone can fall in love with music.”

AfroCubism is currently on tour in Europe, where this group of Malian and Cuban greats played a sold-out show at the Barbican in London on Sunday. The Arts Desk called it "one of the most transporting and life-affirming gigs of the year." The Evening Standard gave it a perfect five stars, saying: "The musical links are real and there’s a clear physical delight in throwing round the exuberant solos." Band member Toumani Diabaté gave the BBC World Service a brief tutorial on the kora and how this traditional Malian instrument worked so well with the sounds of Cuba on AfroCubism.

The nominations are in for the fRoots Critics Poll of Best New Album of 2010, and among them are the Carolina Chocolate Drops and several artists on the World Circuit/Nonesuch roster: AfroCubism, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté, and Cheikh Lô. This year marks the 25th annual fRoots Critics Poll. The winners will be announced in BBC Radio 3's World on 3 on December 3.

The Barbican in London has revealed the complete program for Reverberations: The Influence of Steve Reich, a two-day celebration of his music and his influence on generations of musicians, May 7 and 8. Highlights include performances of all the new music he has written since the Barbican celebrated his 70th birthday in October 2006, including Double Sextet, 2x5, and WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. Carnegie Hall presents those works in Music of Steve Reich at the end of April.

Ben Folds continues his Lonely Avenue tour stops in Montclair, New Jersey, Charlotte, and Atlanta. The New York Times describes him as "a witty, engaging songwriter possessing both chops and humor, a rare combination." The Londonist, looking forward to February's UK tour, says his "live performances are full of energy, bite, irony and good humour." Folds spoke with Nashville Public Television about his upcoming benefit concert with the Nashville Symphony in a video you can watch here, along with a preview of the upcoming season of NBC's The Sing-Off.

Dawn Upshaw joined violinist Geoff Nutall for the European premiere of Kurtág's Kafka Fragments at the Barbican in London last week, directed by Peter Sellars. The Guardian gave it four stars, citing "Upshaw's emotional honesty and gripping presentation of music that tests a soprano's technique." She joins another Sellars collaborator, John Adams, in performances of Adams's El Niño with the San Francisco Symphony, led by the composer, in early December.