Brad Mehldau performs solo sets at New York City's Highline Ballroom tonight, with proceeds going to benefit JazzReach, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, performance, creation, and teaching of jazz. "Mehldau has established himself as one of the standout jazz voices of his generation," says the New York Times, "partly through a run of intensely lyrical solo piano recitals." The Village Voice calls Mehldau's solo work "sublime."

k.d. lang will join Tony Bennett on stage again to headline the San Francisco Symphony’s 2010 Black & White Ball on May 22. The concert will include duets as well as individual performances at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall with all proceeds going to support the Symphony’s Adventures in Music education program. The pair's 1994 duet "Moonglow" will be part of Recollection, the forthcoming k.d. lang career retrospective, out February 9.

The Low Anthem performed at Saturday's multi-artist Hot Stove Cool Music benefit concert in Boston; the Boston Globe included the set among the event's highlights, calling the group "a dazzlingly talented bunch." Now comes word that the band will be headlining its first North American tour this spring and making its US television debut on the Late Show with David Letterman this Thursday. It will also spend much of February supporting The Avett Brothers on the road.

David Byrne presents a short video/audio lecture called Creation in Reverse at The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, tonight. The program looks at the ways that venue and context shape artistic creation and will be followed by an audience Q&A. The event is free, and admission is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Byrne's collaboration with Fatboy Slim, Here Lies Love, is due out on April 6.

The Low Anthem performs in Boston to benefit the Red Sox Foundation's Foundation to Be Named Later ... Carolina Chocolate Drops kick off tour in Georgia and South Carolina ... Steve Reich joins So Percussion for Clapping Music at Stanford ... Allen Toussaint plays Kansas City and debuts on Austin City Limits ... Sara Watkins returns to A Prairie Home Companion ... and more ...

The Carolina Chocolate Drops begin their two-month tour tonight at the Melting Pot in Athens, Georgia. To mark the start of the tour, the band's forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, is now available for pre-order in the US at nonesuch.com with seven exclusive bonus tracks recorded live. In the UK, where the tour heads later this month, the BBC's The Strand included the band in its predictions for "great art and artists in 2010."

Sara Watkins returns to the set of NPR's A Prairie Home Companion, joining host Garrison Keillor and crew for a live broadcast from San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House Saturday afternoon. Sara, whom the show describes as "a bright shining star of modern bluegrass," will be this week's special guest, along with Metropolitan Opera tenor Raúl Melo.

Pat Metheny's adventurous new "solo” recording, Orchestrion, is set for its Nonesuch CD release on January 26. The project pairs the composer-guitarist with a phalanx of remarkable, custom-made instruments played via solenoid switches and pneumatics. Now, for the first time, you can catch a glimpse of it all in action in a video at nonesuch.com/media. You can hear Pat discuss the project on the BBC's The Strand.

Steve Reich will join So Percussion in a performance of Clapping Music for an all-Reich program at Stanford University this Saturday. The concert, featuring the US premiere of Reich's latest piece, Mallet Quartet, is the culmination of a number of related events at Stanford this week, including a public conversation with Reich and Beryl Korot. The San Jose Mercury News calls it all "a welcome and rare opportunity for immersion in Reich's rhythmical realm."

While The Low Anthem has been busy prepping its next album, documenting it all on video, Magnet magazine named its Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, the 2009 Album of the Year, "a thrilling, romantic journey through Americana at its absolute finest." This month, the band begins its WOXY radio show and a European tour; its later US tour with the Avett Brothers has already begun to sell out.

Wilco will play a run of 16 concerts in Eastern US cities beginning in Miami on March 22 and culminating in Pittsburgh on April 11. The concerts are presented as An Evening with Wilco and will feature extended, varied sets exploring material from each of the accomplished Chicago sextet’s seven studio albums. The tour includes concerts in Clearwater, Savannah, Atlanta, Durham, Richmond, Bethesda, Montclair, Providence, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.

When President Barack Obama was in Oslo last week to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he took time to meet Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. The couple went on to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo Friday night. "We were proud to represent Africa during the Nobel Peace Prize celebrations," they say, "and it was a great honor to have met President Barack Obama." The Philadelphia Inquirer names the couple's "deliriously ebullient" Welcome to Mali among the year's best; TIME names the album opener, "Sabali," one of the year's best songs.