Natalie Merchant spoke with Sheroes host Carmel Holt, a longtime friend, on the latest episode of the show and its special ten-part series The Road to Joni, honoring Joni Mitchell. This week, on episode four, "The Bridge to Joni," Merchant discusses her own relationship with Mitchell's music and shares a previously unreleased recording of her performing "All I Want" from her personal archives. You can hear the episode, which also features Madison Cunningham, here.

“The Last Supper," from Caroline Shaw's original score for Ken Burns's new two-part documentary, LEONARDO da VINCI, is out now, along with a music video you can watch here. The album, with new compositions by Shaw and performances by Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, Roomful of Teeth, and John Patitucci, is due October 25; the documentary airs on November 18 and 19 at 8pm ET on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS App. Shaw wrote and recorded new music for LEONARDO da VINCI, marking the first time a Ken Burns film has featured an entirely original score.

Pianist Jeremy Denk and violinist Stefan Jackiw's performance of the first movement of Charles Ives's Violin Sonata No. 4 ("Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting"), from the upcoming album Ives Denk, is out now. Ives Denk, due October 18 in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ives’ birth, features the composer’s four violin sonatas, performed with Jackiw, as well as remastered versions of his Sonatas No. 1 and 2 for piano, from Denk’s 2010 debut recording, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives.

Composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose new album, Land of Winter, performed by Alarm Will Sound, is due November 15, 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. He chose recordings by Henryk Górecki, John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, Louis Andriessen, and Giya Kancheli, and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares.

"On Hurray for the Riff Raff's latest album, The Past Is Still Alive, songwriter Alynda Segarra acts as a reanimator, casting the old American cowboy myth in a new light, crafting heroic legends for long-lost friends of theirs, and finding ways to commune with their father, who they lost right before recording the album," Raina Douris, host of NPR's World Cafe, says of her guest. "I love this record." You can hear their conversation here. Segarra was also on ABC Radio National's The Music Show ahead of their Australian tour next month.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway's new six-song EP, Into the Wild, is out now. The EP, a follow-up to their Grammy-winning and critically acclaimed 2023 album, City of Gold, features three new songs—the title track, “Getaway Girl,” and a cover of Kate Wolf’s “Here in California”—as well as previously released covers of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” and an alternate version of the City of Gold track “Stranger Things.”

Bolivian-born singer and multimedia performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly and their debut full-length album as co-composers, arrangers, and musicians, MESTIZX, are the subject of a new documentary from International Anthem, with whom Nonesuch released the album, edited by David Burkart. Over twenty-two minutes and twenty-seconds, the short film follows the Amsterdam-based duo down their personal, creative paths to crafting the album.

Brad Mehldau has shared new videos filmed at the Village Vanguard in New York City in which he discusses and performs from his latest albums, After Bach II and Après Fauré, which were released on Nonesuch this past May. On the former, he performs some improvised variations on Bach's Goldberg theme, as he does on After Bach II, and on the latter, he discusses the impact of Fauré's final nocturne, no. 13, and performs his own piece Après Fauré No. 4: Vision. You can watch both here.

"If you know anything about me, accolades and awards and record sales never mattered to me. I will say that this one is pretty meaningful," k.d. lang said following her induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and her first performance with her band the Reclines in 35 years, at the CCMA Awards in Edmonton on Saturday. "It's all very much rich with sentiment. I‘m filled with absolute joy." She spoke about the honor and her career on CBC News, which says: "Whether it was an original song or a spin on a classic, k.d. lang always brought originality to her music and her life." You can watch both here.

The Staves have shared a new song, "A Weird One." This follows last month's release of the song "Waiting for the Joy" and the announcement of a US acoustic tour for this fall, celebrating their spring 2024 album, All Now. "A rolling list of thoughts on one particular day; from the mundane to the existential," the Staves' Jessica and Camilla Staveley say of the new song. "A to-do list but with the underlying hum of grief and anxiety towards what the year ahead might bring." The band recorded the track during the All Now sessions with producer John Congleton.

The Staves have shared a video of them giving an acoustic performance of "I Don't Say It, But I Feel It," a song from their latest album, All Now, and their new acoustic EP, Happy New Year. You can watch it here:

Rhiannon Giddens joins forces with singer-songwriter Crys Matthews and the Resistance Revival Chorus for a reimagining of folk icon Peggy Seeger’s “How I Long for Peace,” released today, timed to Tuesday's National Voter Registration Day, in partnership with Joy To The Polls and HeadCount. You can watch a video for it here. “Rhiannon, Crys, and Company have done an amazing interpretation of my song," Seeger says. "Thank you, Rhiannon, as always—now it’s on its way!” "I have been a longtime Peggy Seeger fan," Giddens says, "and think she has written an incredible song that says some hard but crucial things and most importantly allows space for us all to wish for a better world.”