Attacca Quartet kicks off its 2019–20 concert season in Italy this week, performing a program that opens with composer Caroline Shaw's five-part Plan and Elevation, the centerpiece to her album, Orange. On the album, the Attacca performs that and other pieces by Shaw, as it will throughout the upcoming concert season. Shaw joins the quartet for performances in Red Bank, New York City, and London, and the season's culminating concert at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, in May, for which they will also be joined by Gabriel Kahane as well.

Ry Cooder's critically acclaimed album Chávez Ravine, first released on Nonesuch Records in 2005, makes its vinyl debut today. With a cast of legendary Chicano musicians, Cooder recounts the story of how a Mexican-American community was razed to make way for L.A.'s Dodger Stadium. "A remarkable song cycle," said Rolling Stone, "a brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson." The two-LP vinyl edition was remastered from the original high-resolution source files and pressed on 140-gram vinyl. The set comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket with a twenty-page, full-color booklet. It is available in the Nonesuch Store, as are new remastered digital editions.

Devendra Banhart has released "Taking a Page," a fourth song from his new album, Ma, due September 13. For the song, he sought special permission from Carole King to lift a line and melody from her beloved 1971 classic "So Far Away." "I'm so glad Carole got to hear it," he says. "It's really just a song about my entire life. I can't explain it much beyond that." King's immediate response upon hearing the song: "I like it."

Yola begins an eight-concert North American tour as special guest of Kacey Musgraves with shows in Kansas City, St. Louis, Cleveland, Toronto, and Vienna, VA; two nights in New Orleans; and a culminating concert at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Yola also has several US headline shows and festival sets ahead—including Farm Aid, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and Austin City Limits—then returns to the UK and Europe to tour. She will perform at the Americana Honors & Awards in Nashville on September 11; Yola is up for Emerging Act of the Year and Album of the Year. 

Gabriel Kahane begins his 2019–20 concert season with a performance of songs from his album Book of Travelers at the Honens Festival in Calgary on Friday. The season ahead brings several concerts featuring music from the album, including an evening with string quartet in Seattle and performances of Pattern of the Rail: Six Orchestral Songs from 'Book of Travelers' with Oregon Symphony, of which he was recently named Creative Chair, and Louisville Orchestra. Kahane's currently scheduled season culminates in a concert with Caroline Shaw and Attacca Quartet at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, in May.

The line-up for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has been announced, and among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Emmylou Harris, Kronos Quartet, Robert Plant, Punch Brothers, Chris Thile, and Yola. The free, annual outdoor music festival returns for the nineteenth year to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, October 4–6, 2019. You can hear songs from all these artists in a playlist here.

Congratulations to composer John Adams, whose Doctor Atomic has won the Opus Klassik Award for Best Opera Recording – 20th/21st Century. On this first recording of the piece, the composer leads the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with a cast led by Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock. Peter Sellars created the libretto, drawing from original sources to explore the final hours leading up to the first atomic bomb explosion in 1945. The Opus Klassik awards ceremony will take place in Berlin on October 13.

Devendra Banhart has confirmed eighteen European tour dates in January and February 2020 as part of a world tour in support of his forthcoming album, Ma. The European leg comprises concerts in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, including London’s Shepherd Bush Empire on February 4.

Kronos Quartet's groundbreaking 2002 collaboration with composer Terry Riley, Sun Rings, is now available as a recording for the first time. Riley incorporates into his composition "space sounds" (plasma waves) that NASA had collected from the Voyager probes, as well as a choir that represents, in his words, "the voice of humanity in its struggle to understand the meaning of our place in this unfathomable universe." Musical America calls it "a spaceship that faces ahead into the planets but also looks back toward its starting point on Earth."

The Black Keys have released a live video version of "I Got Mine," from their 2008 album, Attack & Release. For the performance, they are joined by their touring band, Andrew Gabbard and Delicate Steve on guitar, and Zachary Gabbard on bass. The video, taped at a recent rehearsal in front of a small audience made up of members of the band's fan club, provides a behind-the-scenes look and a preview of their upcoming "Let's Rock" tour, which starts September 23. Watch it here.

Gabriel Kahane has been appointed to the newly created post of Creative Chair at the Oregon Symphony through the 2021/22 Season. In addition to writing and performing three substantial works over the next three seasons, Kahane will serve as an advisor for contemporary programming on the Classical series. He will produce two new concert series: Open Music, a composer-driven chamber series to be held in smaller Portland venues, and an as yet unnamed indie concert series in which pop artists will collaborate with dynamic composers and orchestrators. 

Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko) has shared "Water Me Down," the latest track from her self-titled sophomore album, due October 18. "I wrote 'Water Me Down' in a stream of consciousness way in the few minutes following a frustrating phone call with someone," says Tamko. "My intention was to create a playground in which to explore difficult feelings with confidence, triumph and foresight."