The national touring company of the recent Broadway production of Sweeney Todd has been playing to audiences north of border in Toronto for the past month. The show now moves back to the States for a few days in Columbus, Ohio, beginning tomorrow night at the Palace Theatre. The Columbus Dispatch sat down for an in-depth interview with the tour's scene-stealing Mrs. Lovett, Judy Kaye, whom director John Doyle lauds for her "terrific singing voice and immaculate comedy timing," essential attributes in this role as the murderous barber's partner in crime.

World Music/CRASHarts presents Youssou N'Dour and the Super Étoile band this Monday, December 10, at the Somerville Theatre. Today's Boston Globe previews the next phase of the organization's winter and spring schedule, which includes a broad range of artists from around the world, from Toumani Diabaté's pan-African Symmetric Orchestra, also at the Somerville, on February 2, to Laurie Anderson, who will bring her new piece, Homeland, to the Boston Opera House on March 29.

Among the many roles Youssou N'Dour has come to play, he has come to be known "as one of the planet's true superstars and a beacon of African pride," says the Chicago Tribune. At Wednesday's Chicago House of Blues show, N'Dour's singing was "as strong and rich as it's ever been," and his band, Super Étoile de Dakar proved itself "the rare band entirely deserving of the 'super,' perfectly composed to push ahead but constantly poised for stop-on-a-dime shifts."

Toronto's new Luminato Festival, which earlier this year, in its inaugural run, presented the world premiere of Philip Glass's Book of Longing, has unveiled its 2008 program, and the Globe and Mail calls it "an ambitious agenda of dance, music, theatre, film, and visual arts." On the bill for the June 6–15 event are the Canadian premieres of Nunavut by Kronos Quartet and Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, and Laurie Anderson's Homeland. 

SFJAZZ has announced the line-up for its ninth annual spring season, and the Brad Mehldau Trio is on the bill. The new season, which runs from March 6 through June 20, includes a performance by Brad and his trio on June 6 at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre June 6. 

The schedule for the 2008 Gilmore Keyboard Festival has been released, and among the artists on the bill for the biannual event are Richard Goode, Audra McDonald, and the Brad Mehldau Trio. The Festival will be held April 24–May 13, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

This week, New England Conservatory held a mini-festival celebrating the music of Steve Reich, with four free concerts held over Wednesday and Thursday nights. In today's Boston Globe, correspondent Kevin Lowenthal reports from Wednesday's concerts, which featured Piano Phases, Different Trains, Six Pianos, and, as the closing piece, Music for 18 Musicians. About the last, Lowenthal writes that "More than 30 years since its debut, the piece remains fresh. It evokes a blazing night sky observed to the sound of crickets, then moves beyond that to the mind's imaginative journey through the infinity of space."

The 2008 Tanglewood season has been announced, and Kronos Quartet is among the Guest Artists taking the stage at the Lenox, Massachusetts, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Kronos' Thursday, August 14, program will include John Zorn's Dead Man, Flugufrelsarinn by Sigur Rós, and Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, which the composer wrote for the Quartet in 1998. Tickets go on sale to the public February 17. 

Good news for fans of The Magnetic Fields unable to make one of their three sold-out shows at New York City's Town Hall in February: a fourth show has been added! On Sunday, February 24, 2008, the group will play one more night in NYC before heading to San Francisco for their next tour dates. Tickets for the newly added show will be available beginning today at 12 PM EST.

After kicking off the California leg his of US tour last night in Santa Cruz, Youssou N'Dour will make two more stops in northern California before heading down to Los Angeles this Saturday. Gearing up for the concert at UCLA's Royce Hall, the Los Angeles Times praises Youssou's "inimitable vocals, with their seductive timbral span" and argues that "a pretty convincing case could be made for N'Dour as one of the world's most visible and successful international artists."

The New Music Collective out of Charleston, South Carolina, begins its season this Sunday with a program called New Music, New Charleston, which will include a performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint by area guitarist David Linaburg, along with two world premieres of works by local composers. 

Youssou N'Dour resumes his North American tour tonight at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. On Friday, he makes his way to San Francisco for the season finale of 25th Annual SF Jazz Festival. "N'Dour shows that he has lost neither charm nor youthful energy," says SF Weekly of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). "The rhythmically rich music works like a frame around his high-pitched voice, and the music is able to captivate even the most jaded listener, world music fan or otherwise."