Audra McDonald makes her Australian debut with a one-night-only performance at Arts Centre Melbourne's Hamer Hall this Saturday, October 31, followed by three performances with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House from November 5 to 7. The six-time Tony Award winner has been performing for audiences across the US over the past several months, bringing what the Los Angeles Times calls her "downright inspirational" interpretations of American classics to stages from California to Connecticut.

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman wraps up first leg of US fall tour in Northeast ... Laurie Anderson answers questions at Heart of a Dog screenings in NYC … Jeremy Denk performs solo in Northeast … Lianne La Havas tours South … Audra McDonald goes to Tacoma … Brad Mehldau joins Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in NYC … Randy Newman completes Netherlands tour … Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club plays Atlanta … Rokia Traoré performs Desdemona in Sydney ...

Rhiannon Giddens will take part in "Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America" on Friday, November 20, at 8 PM ET/PT. The concert will be recorded at The Shrine Auditorium in LA on Wednesday, November 18. The two-hour special event will air across A+E Networks and iHeartRadio music stations across the US. Giddens will join artists including Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Jamie Foxx, Tori Kelly, John Legend, Miguel, Pink, Jill Scott, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Pharrell Williams for the event, including a once-in-a-lifetime series of duets, focused on creating reconciliation and positive change in local communities.

The line-up for the 2016 Big Ears Festival has been announced, and featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass, Olivia Chaney, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and Bombino. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 31–April 2, 2016. Weekend passes and daily tickets for the 2016 Big Ears Festival will go on sale this Friday, October 23, at 12 PM ET.

Kronos Quartet, Sam Amidon celebrate the opening of St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn … John Adams leads European premiere of his Scheherazade.2 … The Bad Plus Joshua Redman tours Midwest … Tyondai Braxton plays Toronto … Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club takes its "Adios" tour to Texas … Jeremy Denk performs in Canada … Richard Goode joins LA Chamber Orchestra … Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell bring the latest leg of their US tour to a close … Lianne La Havas is in LA … Audra McDonald plays Peoria … Randy Newman visits Belgium … Conor Oberst gives free hometown show … Rokia Traoré performs Desdemona in Melbourne … Junun screens at Rome Film Festival and in San Francisco … and more …

The Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club will perform at The White House this afternoon in celebration of Hispanic Heritage month. A delegation of about 500 dignitaries and politicians from around the world will be hosted by President Barack Obama. The event is due to stream live at whitehouse.gov/live. Led by members of the original, Grammy Award–winning Buena Vista Social Club band, the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club will be the first Cuban musical group to perform at The White House in more than 50 years.

Kronos Quartet leads a weeklong workshop at Carnegie Hall April 9–15, 2016, open to student and young professional string quartets aged 18–35 to explore new works commissioned as part of Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. The tuition-free workshop culminates in a public performance at Zankel Hall and will also focus on several of Kronos’s signature works. The application deadline is November 17, 2015. Kronos performs at Zankel Hall on April 2. The group performs at the St. Ann's Warehouse opening in Brooklyn this Saturday and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan on Tuesday.

As previously noted, special one-night-only screenings of the documentary Paradise Is There, A Memoir by Natalie Merchant, The New Tigerlily Recordings have been announced for the fall. The film will be released by Nonesuch Records on November 6, 2015 on DVD as a companion piece to Natalie Merchant's upcoming album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. Merchant will perform in a handful of international cities in the spring with her An Evening with Natalie Merchant: The 2016 Paradise Is There tour; tickets go on sale Friday. She has released the album track "Carnival," which you can hear here; pre-order the album to download it now.

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman kicks off a tour of North America at Dartmouth's Hopkins Center for the Arts tonight, followed by stops this month in Toronto, Chicago, Madison, Carmel, Columbus, Saratoga Springs, Northampton, and Boston. In December, the band heads West for shows in Boulder, Phoenix, Albuquerque, San Diego, and Santa Cruz, closing out the 2015 touring with a four-night residency at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, December 10–13. The tour features music from The Bad Plus Joshua Redman's recently released self-titled debut album, which the New York Times calls "a knockout," and NPR describes as "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting."

Rhiannon Giddens returns to Austin City Limits … Jeremy Denk performs at The Kennedy Center … Emmylou Harris leads pet shelter benefit … Kronos Quartet performs at Stanford … Lianne La Havas continues in Canada … Audra McDonald sings in Massachusetts … Brad Mehldau heads to France … Pat Metheny plays Uppsala Guitar Fest … Randy Newman kicks off Europe tour … Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club takes "Adios" tour to California … Rokia Traoré performs Desdemona in LA … and more …

Randy Newman kicks off a month-long tour of Europe and the UK with two performances in the Netherlands, in Eindhoven and Nijmegen, followed by shows in Belgium in Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels, and a return to the Netherlands for shows at The Hague and in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Groningen. From there, Newman makes his way to the UK and Ireland, performing in London, Dublin, Glasgow, and Gateshead, and returns to the Continent to close out the tour in Germany and Austria.

Select North American cities will host one-night-only screenings of the documentary Paradise Is There, A Memoir by Natalie Merchant, The New Tigerlily Recordings starting October 26. The film, which had its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival last week, will be released by Nonesuch on DVD with Natalie Merchant’s upcoming album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings, on November 6.