Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens, who received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Princeton University at the commencement ceremony this morning. "Named by NPR as one of the 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century, she has dedicated her career to raising up voices that have been overlooked or erased," says the school. "Few contemporary artists have done more to connect overlooked musical traditions of America’s past with music being performed today."

“Natalie Merchant is unique—her voice, her approach to her career—and her new album is unique in this moment,” Alison Stewart says of her guest on WNYC’s All of It. They discuss the album, Keep Your Courage, ahead of Merchant's concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, joined by The Knights orchestra, this weekend, and at NJPAC in Newark with Orchestra of St. Luke’s on June 25. You can hear their conversation here.

Congratulations to k.d. lang, who received the 2023 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada’s highest honor in the performing arts, from Governor General Mary Simon at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday. The award recognizes artists for having made an indelible contribution to cultural life in Canada and around the world. The six 2023 laureates were honored again at the Awards Gala at the National Arts Centre last night. "I can’t even actually fathom being placed in the same company as the people, the artists who have influenced me so tremendously,” lang said. "Canada has such an embarrassment of riches, so many tremendous artists, and to be bestowed with this honor is unthinkable really ... So, thank you."

Sam Amidon performed live at The Blasket Centre – Ionad an Bhlascaoid in West Kerry, Ireland, as part of Anam: Songs for Hearts and Minds, a multi-artist concert that streamed live via Other Voices. Amidon performed songs from his latest release, his 2020 self-titled album, to his 2013 Nonesuch debut, Bright Sunny South, and more. You can watch it here.

Molly Tuttle will tour the UK in January 2024 as special guest of fellow guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. The fifteen-city tour begins at the Exeter Corn Exchange January 10 and continues with shows in Bath, London, Bexhill, Southend, Bury St Edmunds, Lytham, Sunderland, Glasgow, Buxton, King's Lynn, Shrewsbury, St Albans, and New Brighton, culminating at Harrogate Royal Hall January 27. 

Congratulations to Cécile McLorin Salvant, who received an honorary degree from The New School at its commencement ceremonies in New York City this morning. "Through your fearless explorations, you embody the New School's belief in the power of the artist to change the world for the better," said faculty member Reggie Workman upon presenting her with the degree. 

The Magnetic Fields' 2004 Nonesuch debut album, i, released on vinyl for the first time for Record Store Day 2023 last month, is now available in the Nonesuch Store. This limited-edition LP is on 140-gram, gold-colored vinyl. You can take a quick look inside in the unboxing video and get the vinyl here. "Stephin Merritt is an incomparable lyricist capable of balancing arch wit with painfully acute observation," the Guardian said upon the album's release. "The most exciting dissector of modern love around."

Molly Tuttle and her band Golden Highway—Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Shelby Means on bass, and Kyle Tuttle on banjo—perform "El Dorado," from their upcoming album, City of Gold, live in a new video. The video was directed by Michael Kessler at Sound Emporium Studio A in Nashville, where the new album was recorded. You can watch it here.

Emmylou Harris’s second Nonesuch album, Stumble Into Grace, was released on September 23, 2003. Ahead of its twentieth anniversary, Nonesuch releases the album on vinyl for the first time, in a limited cream-colored vinyl edition, out now. On this, her second consecutive album of original material, following her Nonesuch debut album, Red Dirt Girl, Harris is joined by guests like Linda Ronstadt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Gillian Welch, Jane Siberry, Buddy Miller, Daniel Lanois, and Malcolm Burn, who produced the record.

Laurie Anderson is on The Pitchfork Review podcast. The episode features her conversation with Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel, Kim Gordon, and writer/editor Sinéad Gleeson from the Chicago Humanities Festival in May 2022. They discuss This Woman’s Work, an essay anthology edited by Gordon and Gleeson, which includes a piece about Anderson, and more. You can hear their conversation here.

Makaya McCraven, who performs at the Knockdown Center in Queens, NY, this Saturday as part of the Outline Festival, is the guest on the latest episode of the International Anthem Podcast. McCraven spoke with host Ayana Contreras from his Chicago home about the reception of his acclaimed new album, In These Times, and revisits the concepts, intentions, growth, and changes the work encompassed along his decade-long journey of making it. You can hear their conversation here.

Composer/pianist Timo Andres is on The Next Track podcast to talk about a number of contemporary classical pieces, including those on his own Nonesuch albums Home Stretch and Shy and Mighty, Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet, Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, Terry Riley’s In C, and works by Cage, Messiaen, Pärt, Rzewski, Takemitsu, and Sufjan Stevens. You can hear it here.