Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe have announced an intimate, three-week tour of Europe to begin with three nights at Dublin's Olympia Theatre in mid-June. Cooder and Lowe’s working relationship began in the late 1980s, and following two benefit performances together at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco last year—featuring a selection of work from both their celebrated careers—the pair have decided to take their show on the road. They will be joined by Flaco Jimenez on accordion, Joachim Cooder on drums, and vocalist Juliette Commagere.

Félicitations à Rokia Traoré. Tchamantché, her latest Tama/Nonesuch release, received the Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of the Grammy Award, for Best World Album. The ceremony was held this past Saturday night at the Zenith in Paris and was broadcast live on French national television.

John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic receives its UK premiere tonight in the English National Opera production at the London Coliseum. The production, based on the Metropolitan Opera's New York premiere last fall, is directed by Penny Woolcock and stars Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and Sasha Cooke as his wife, Kitty Oppenheimer. Conductor Lawrence Renes leads the ENO Orchestra and Chorus in the performances, which run through March 20.

Dan Auerbach's newly released solo record, Keep It Hid, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart, a list of the week's best-performing albums from new artists. The Independent gives it four stars, citing the album's "broad sweep of blues styles" and Dan's vocals, channeling "the haunted quality of an authentic soul singer." The Cleveland Plain Dealer gives an A- to the new record, which sees Dan "cutting loose with a marvelous solo debut ... Crank it up."

Rokia Traoré is the subject of a feature article in the Financial Times that examines the life and career of "Mali’s most ambitious, experimental singer," in particular her place in a culture in which musical roles are often strictly defined by tradition and deep-rooted tastes. The article closes at a soundcheck in a London club in which Rokia and her band are getting ready to play, and even with the day's distractions, "when Traoré sings quietly, more to herself than to anyone else, the room is hers and hers alone."

John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic is set to receive its UK premiere next Wednesday, February 25, in the English National Opera's production at the London Coliseum. New Statesman spoke with the composer about the piece, with its "shatteringly powerful" music, and about his place as "the leading American composer of his generation, still in full creative flow, prolific and inventive." The article examines Adams's operas, from his first, Nixon in China, which "transformed the world of opera," to his latest, the "shimmeringly beautiful" A Flowering Tree.

John Adams will be a featured composer of the Barbican Centre's 2009–10 season in a special John Adams Focus series next year. It will include six Adams works over six performances next February to July, featuring four UK premieres and two concerts with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. The Times (UK) talks to Adams about his operas, with Doctor Atomic set to receive its UK premiere by the English National Opera next week.

Youssou N'Dour is partnering with IntraHealth International, the non-profit working to promote sustainable, accessible health care around the world, on a charity album titled OPEN Remix. It will benefit a new IntraHealth OPEN Initiative, created to address critical health issues in Africa by putting the latest open-source software technologies directly in the hands of health workers. Nas, Duncan Sheik, Peter Buck, and other artists have joined Youssou in the effort, donating remixes of his song "Wake Up (It's Africa Calling)" to raise funds and visibility for the new initiative.

Wilco is set to release a new concert DVD, Ashes of American Flags, on Nonesuch, Saturday, April 18, at independent retailers and nonesuch.com nationwide as part of national Record Store Day. The film, shot in high-def and produced and directed by Christoph Green and Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, presents Wilco live in concert during their 2008 tour. Culled from concerts in five quintessentially American venues—Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Tipitina’s in New Orleans, The Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC—it captures the energy, poignancy, and musicality of a Wilco concert and tour.

Brad Mehldau will be joined by mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter at Carnegie Hall tonight for the world premiere of his new work Love Songs. The piece, written for von Otter, is Brad's third Carnegie Hall commission for voice and song; it is set to poems by Sara Teasdale, Philip Larkin, and e. e. cummings, each poet with a different perspective on love. Mehldau and von Otter will perform a number of American popular songs as well. On the first half of the program, pianist Bengt Forsberg will accompany von Otter on works by Sibelius, Hahn, and Schumann, and perform piano works by Ravel and Dukas.

Orlando "Cachaíto" López, the legendary Cuban bassist, died in a Havana hospital yesterday, after complications from a routine operation. Born in Havana in 1933, Cachaíto came from one of Cuba’s foremost musical dynasties, which included his father, Orestes López and uncle, Israel "Cachao" López, and he was considered by many as the finest bass player in the world. The "heartbeat of the Buena Vista Social Club," bass player Cachaíto was the only musician to have played on every album in the Buena Vista Social Club series.

London's Wigmore Hall has announced the first group of concerts that Brad Mehldau has programmed as artistic director of an annual, two-season jazz series there. Scheduled for the first season, 2009-10, are two solo events, a duo concert with label mate Joshua Redman, a Brad Mehldau Trio concert, and a recital with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, with whom he premieres his Love Songs tomorrow at Carnegie Hall.