Sara Watkins launched the fall leg of her tour as special guest on Jackson Browne's Acoustic Tour of the United States. The tour, which began this summer with shows throughout July and August, picked up again with a concert at West Virginia University on Monday and continues through November 18 with a concert in Northridge, California, to benefit 88.5 KCSN FM. In December, Watkins leads a headline tour of the West Coast with Aoife O'Donovan.

Kronos Quartet will be honored by MATA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to commissioning and presenting works by young composers from around the world, in the organization's 15th Annual Benefit Gala at the Tibet House in New York City Tuesday night. The evening will feature remarks by Philip Glass and Steve Reich and by Jennifer Bilfield of Stanford Live, as well as performances by Pannonia Quartet and Jacob Garchik's The Heavens. Kronos performs in Iowa City this week, then launches a tour of Europe that features several performances of Reich's WTC 9/11.

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra kicked off their tour of Asia with a performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Monday night, followed by concerts in Korea (Seoul, Goyang, and Daejeon), China (Guangzhou and Shenzhen), and Japan (Nagoya, Kobe, Tokyo, and Kurume). Additionally, Kremer will perofrm with smaller chamber ensembles in Japan. The CBC calls the group's latest album, The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould, "a haunting, highly personal homage from one great musician to another and a deeply affecting tribute to Gould's enduring genius."

Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter kick off a series of tour dates in the UK and Ireland with a performance at the Sage Gateshead tonight, followed by shows in Dublin, Derby, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, and Cambridge. These special shows will feature the acclaimed songwriters (and longtime friends) performing as an intimate duo and will include material spanning their vast catalogs as well as some of their favorite songs.

The Black Keys and Punch Brothers play the sold-out Austin City Limits Festival ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to Long Island ... Billy Bragg launches New Zealand tour ... Carolina Chocolate Drops take show from UK to France ... Ry Cooder celebrates Woody Guthrie at The Kennedy Center ... Jeremy Denk tours with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center ... Dr. John & Blind Boys of Alabama take Spirituals to Funk tour to San Diego ... Pat Metheny's Unity Band closes out tour in NYC, Boston ... Sara Watkins tours Virginia and Ohio ... and more ...

Billy Bragg launches a tour of New Zealand and Australia this Friday, October 12, in celebration of the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie, on the 100th anniversary of the folk legend’s birth. The shows will feature songs from the Mermaid Avenue albums, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music, as well as songs from throughout Bragg's career. The New Zealand leg includes stops in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Christchurch; the Australia leg in Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth.

Dr. John hits the road with a four-piece band and The Blind Boys of Alabama for the Spirituals to Funk tour, starting tonight in California. Based on the legendary Carnegie Hall Spirituals to Swing concerts of the 1930s, Spirituals to Funk features an integrated show that explores the connections between jazz, blues, and gospel, all under Dr. John's musical direction. "Musical pairings don’t come much more inspired," says the San Diego Union-Tribune. The tour will visit 30 cities and towns in 14 states across the US.

Emmylou Harris and Sara Watkins perform at the 12th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park ... The Black Keys play two nights at LA's Staples Center ... Carolina Chocolate Drops launch European tour in Galway ... Fatoumata Diawara closes out US tour in North Carolina ... Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica play Esterházy Palace in Austria ... Kronos Quartet opens for Amon Tobin, joins Santa Rosa Symphony ... Jessica Lea Mayfield is in Birmingham ... Brad Mehldau has four solo sets at NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center ... Pat Metheny's Unity Band tours the South ... Punch Brothers are at The New Yorker Festival ... and more ...

Carolina Chocolate Drops, who gave a pair of rapturously received sold-out shows in Glasgow and London at the start of the year, are bringing their exhilarating live show back to the UK and to Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany as part of a European tour that kicks off with shows in Galway, Dublin, and London and closes out at the end of the month with three special shows in Germany with label mates Punch Brothers.

The Black Keys launch an arena tour of the western US in Fresno, California, tonight, including stops at the famed Santa Barbara Bowl, the Staples Center in LA, and in Arizona and New Mexico. Tegan and Sara open. Just announced: The Black Keys will headline Lollapalooza Brazil and Lollapalooza Chile next year. At the Global Festival this past Saturday, the band "tore through a set of searing, hard-riffing rock," raves MTV, "one that had the 60,000 who packed Central Park's Great Lawn losing their collective minds."

The Black Keys, Neil Young, and Foo Fighters headline The Global Poverty Project's Global Festival concert in NYC's Central Park, streaming live online ... Laurie Anderson talks happiness in NYC ... Shawn Colvin is in the Midwest and can be heard on HBO's Treme ... Fatoumata Diawara makes her NY headline debut ... Richard Goode plays at Smith College ... Kronos Quartet joins Fall Free for All at Berkeley ... Lianne La Havas opens for Alicia Keys at London's iTunes Festival ... k.d. lang closes out Sing it Loud tour in Montreal ... Pat Metheny's Unity Band is out West ... Punch Brothers head from Toronto to upstate NY ... and more ...

Punch Brothers, who launch their North American tour in Montreal tonight, are celebrating the occasion by offering a free download of three songs recorded live at The Fillmore in San Francisco, including their songs "New York City" and "Don't Get Married Without Me" and Chris Thile's "Song for a Young Queen." The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson, who will be chatting with the band at The New Yorker Festival on October 5, says that each band member "plays with grace, thoughtfulness, and force to a degree that is not duplicated by any band I am aware of."