Laurie Anderson began a week of special performances when she was joined by artist and activist Ai Weiwei, via Skype from Beijing, for the premiere of Greetings to the Motherland at Toronto's Luminato Festival last night; watch it in full here. Anderson leads two free concerts in New York City this week for the annual River to River Festival, featuring stories from United States Parts 1-4 with special guests Steve Buscemi and Young Jean Lee on Tuesday and a night of improvisation with longtime musical collaborators on Wednesday.

Fatoumata Diawara returns to North America for a summer-long tour of the US and Canada. This leg of her tour begins in New Hampshire tonight, then heads to Bonnaroo on Friday. The two-month tour takes Diawara and her band to cities throughout California, into Canada, the US Midwest, and the East Coast, including headline shows, summer festivals sets, and a concert in New York's Central Park for SummerStage. 

Bombino, who is currently touring the US with his "electrifying" show (A.V. Club), has made NPR Music's list of its 25 Favorite Albums of the Year (So Far) for his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad. "Full of undeniably hypnotic trance-guitar music, and produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Nomad rocks like no other record this year," writes NPR Music's Bob Boilen. "Hearing Bombino in any American nightclub, the reaction is ecstasy and complete connection ... It's blues, it's trance and it's psychedelic in its repetition. Oh, and did I mention it rocks?" Bombino tells New York magazine: "There are two kinds of music in the desert. If it makes you want to listen to it, it’s the blues. If it makes you want to move, it’s rock.”

Amadou & Mariam release the digital EP Mali Meets Latin America in the US today as the Malian duo prepares to kick off a North American summer tour at Bonnaroo this weekend. The EP features remixes of four tracks from their 2012 album Folila by artists from Buenos Aires (Frikstailers and King Coya, aka Gaby Kerpel) and Bogotá (Bomba Estéreo and Sidestepper) and was inspired by the couple’s first visit to perform in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina in 2012, when they met several of the producers featured on this collection.

Sara Watkins, who is set to hit the road again as special guest of Jackson Browne next week, recently stopped by Yahoo! Music's Ram Country for a performance of the song "You and Me" off her latest album, Sun Midnight Sun, and to talk about the album and more. Watch the performance and interview here. Watkins's summer tour includes several dates with Browne; festivals sets at Telluride, Winnipeg, and Vancouver; and the Radio Romance Tour with Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion.

Joshua Redman performed songs from his new album, Walking Shadows, at New York's Town Hall on Tuesday with the album's core ensemble—Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Brian Blade—and the chamber orchestra The Knights. The New York Times' Nate Chinen says the event "was, objectively speaking, a special night," exclaiming: "Mr. Redman has always been a fluid technician, but the inner glow in his tone throughout the night, along with the grace and clarity of his ideas, suggested new levels of prowess." 

Nonesuch releases Timo Andres's new album, Home Stretch, on July 30, 2013. On the album, Andres pairs the newly composed title work with two reinventions of works by musical heroes Mozart and Brian Eno: Mozart "Coronation” Concerto Re-Composition, conceived as a companion piece to Mozart's Piano Concerto, No. 12, K. 414, and Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno. Metropolis Ensemble performs, with the composer on piano. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an exclusive print of the first page of the Home Stretch score, autographed by the composer.

Dan Auerbach is the guest on the latest episode of Noisey's Guitar Moves. The series, hosted by musician Matt Sweeney, presents intimate conversations about guitars, music, life, and craft. During the season, Sweeney and his guests play through licks, riffs, and solos that inform their style, influence their playing, and define their sound. In this episode, he sits down with The Black Keys' guitarist to learn the secrets of slide guitar. Watch the episode here.

Joshua Redman performs music from his new album, Walking Shadows, with its core ensemble, Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade, along with the orchestra The Knights, at The Town Hall in NYC on Tuesday. "Melody is always paramount for the saxophonist Joshua Redman, to a degree that sets him apart from his postbop peers," says the New York Times. "Still, there hasn’t been a more sublimely lyrical gesture in his 20-year recording career than Walking Shadows, an album that sets his tenor and soprano against a string orchestra, in tremulous but thoughtful new arrangements." London's Wigmore Hall has announced the 2013-14 season of its jazz series curated by Redman, who performs in two of the four concerts. 

Sam Amidon kicks off a three-week tour of the US featuring music from his recently released Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South. The tour begins at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle tonight and continues on the West Coast with performances in Portland, San Francisco, and LA, followed by stops along the East Coast including Philadelphia, Cambridge, and Portland (Maine), as well as his home town of Brattleboro and a set at the Solid Sound Festival curated by Wilco at MASS MoCA. Amidon was recently listed atop NPR's list of Five Musicians Who Make Borrowing Sound Original.

Devendra Banhart, who is currently touring North America performing songs from his recently released Nonesuch Records debut album, Mala, was featured on Morning Becomes Eclectic out of KCRW in Santa Monica, CA, last Friday. The session, which was recording during the California leg of the tour earlier in May, includes intimate in-studio performances by Banhart and his band of a number of songs from the new album. Watch the set here. The tour continues into Montreal, Toronto, Boston, DC, and Philadelphia, before concluding at The Town Hall in New York City on June 12.

While touring the US East Coast last month, Iron and Wine's Sam Beam stopped by the Boston Public Library to discuss his songwriting with WBUR's Off the Record and perform a couple of songs off the new album Ghost on Ghost. Watch the solo, acoustic performances of the album tracks "Caught in the Briars" and "Grace for Saints and Ramblers" and listen to the interview here. The Guardian gave four stars to last week's London show, saying "Beam writes with an artist’s eye, his songs alive with place and time ... [His] easy charm dazzles."