Punch Brothers kick off a three-week US tour at Oberlin College this Sunday, part of the group's three-part residency on the campus this academic year. The tour, with support from singer/songwriter Aoife O'Donovan, continues through the end of the month with shows in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and upstate New York, as well as festival sets at Suwannee Springfest in Florida and Savannah Music Festival in Georgia. Punch Brothers will also perform at the High Sierra and Sasquatch! festivals in the Pacific Northwest in July.

Carolina Chocolate Drops continue the Southern leg of their US tour in Birmingham and Atlanta ... Shawn Colvin joins Mary Chapin Carpenter, New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center ... Jeremy Denk plays Ravel in Madrid ... Fatoumata Diawara is in Santa Monica ... Dr. John previews Mardi Gras in Florida, where Iron and Wine rounds out six-city tour ... Kronos Quartet performs Terry Riley’s Sun Rings at Notre Dame ... Audra McDonald returns to California’s Central Valley ... Brad Mehldau Trio tours France, Italy ... Pat Metheny Unity Group plays out West ... Chris Thile, Mike Marshall play duo shows in Pacific Northwest ... and more ...

John Adams has teamed up with Toronto Symphony Orchestra Music Director Peter Oundjian for the tenth-annual New Creations Festival, running Saturday, March 1, through Friday, March 7. Following his TSO debut in the 2011 New Creations Festival, Adams returns with his music as a focus in the 2014 Festival, with Oundjian leading the TSO in his Doctor Atomic Symphony and the composer leading the orchestra in the Canadian premieres of his Slonimsky’s Earbox and Absolute Jest.

Jonny Greenwood and the London Contemporary Orchestra perform music from his film scores in London ... John Adams leads Orquesta Nacional de España in Beethoven and Adams ... Bombino concludes Europe tour in Benelux ... Shawn Colvin sings in Connecticut ... Jeremy Denk joins Spokane Symphony Orchestra ... Fatoumata Diawara tours Vermont and Montréal ... Richard Goode gives recital in Gent ... Iron and Wine heads South ... Kronos Quartet celebrates music of Mali in Maryland ... Audra McDonald is in Massachusetts ... Pat Metheny Unity Group plays Texas ... Sara Watkins sets sail on a Caribbean cruise ...

Emmylou Harris and Shawn Colvin will join fellow Grammy Award-winning and/or -nominated women in music for Grammy Festival at Sea: Women Who Rock, a four-day cruise aboard the Norwegian Pearl, departing from Miami and headed to the Bahamas, November 4-8, 2014. Harris and Colvin join Heart, Indigo Girls, Estelle, Skylar Grey, and others for performances, Q&As, and other activities hosted by the performers. There also will be one-of-a-kind opportunities to interact with the artists on board.

To coincide with the release of her new self-titled album, Natalie Merchant will perform two concerts at Milton Court Concert Hall in London on May 10 & 11, showcasing new songs as well as material drawn from her catalogue as a solo artist and with 10,000 Maniacs. These two concerts are part of a wider celebration at the Barbican to mark Nonesuch Records’ 50th anniversary, including a marathon weekend entitled Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records (May 17-18), during which Merchant will join fellow Nonesuch artists Kronos Quartet, Rhiannon Giddens, Sam Amidon, and Olivia Chaney, and others for a unique concert of traditional and contemporary music collaborations. Tickets are on sale now.

Composer John Adams kicks off an extensive residency with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España in Madrid. The residency, titled Carta Blanca a John Adams, features performances of his Absolute Jest, Harmonielehre, American Berserk, China Gates, Phrygian Gates, Shaker Loops, John’s Book of Alleged Dances, String Quartet, Slonimsky’s Earbox, and Doctor Atomic Symphony; talks with the composer; a guest appearance by Jeremy Denk; film screenings of The Death of Klinghoffer and I Am Love; and a collaborative session with area students.

Nickel Creek—Chris Thile (mandolin/vocals), Sara Watkins (fiddle/vocals), and Sean Watkins (guitar/vocals)—officially reunites for the first time since its 2007 self-described “indefinite hiatus” with a new album, A Dotted Line, on April 1, 2014, with vinyl to follow on April 29. Nonesuch Store preorders include an instant download of the album tracks “Destination” and “Love of Mine,” which you can stream here. The band tours the US this spring and summer; for all newly added dates, presales begin Wednesday, February 19, at 10 AM local time.

In celebration of the April reissue of Emmylou Harris’s groundbreaking album Wrecking Ball on Nonesuch Records, Harris and producer Daniel Lanois, along with Jim Wilson on guitar and Steven Nistor on drums, will embark on an international tour this spring, including, in addition to the previously announced North American dates in April, newly announced European shows in the Netherlands, Belgium, and UK in May. 

Singer-songwriter Conor Oberst has signed to Nonesuch Records, which releases his new solo album Upside Down Mountain on May 19, 2014. Pre-order details to come. Prior to the album release, a limited-edition seven-inch single will be released exclusively for Record Store Day (Saturday, April 19), with the album track “Hundreds of Ways,” which you can hear here, and album outtake “Fast Friends” on the B-side. Oberst kicks off the first leg of a world tour May 8 in North Carolina with Dawes as special guests. Tickets go on this Friday, February 14. 

Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) has announced two one-night-only April concert events featuring Nonesuch artists Carolina Chocolate Drops with Twyla Tharp (April 10) and Emmylou Harris on her Wrecking Ball Tour with Daniel Lanois, Steven Nistor, and Jim Wilson (April 12). These two shows serve as precursors to BAM’s larger celebration of Nonesuch’s 50th anniversary this fall (the full slate of fall shows will be announced shortly). BAM has fostered a longtime artistic connection with Nonesuch and its dedication to cultivating outstanding talent in a wide variety of musical genres.

Joshua Redman's "dashing post-bop quartet" (New Yorker) makes its Jazz at Lincoln Center debut  ... Alarm Will Sound continues Missouri run ... Carolina Chocolate Drops are in Florida ... Shawn Colvin concludes Transatlantic Sessions UK tour ... Jeremy Denk plays Beethoven and Ligeti in Virginia ... Fatoumata Diawara kicks off US tour in Midwest ... Richard Goode tours Scotland ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica close out US tour ... Kronos Quartet marks Kronos: Under 30 premiere ... Brad Mehldau is in NYC ... Pat Metheny Unity Group brings Kin (←→) to Florida ... Chris Thile kicks off solo tour in Arizona ... Dawn Upshaw tours Australia ... and more ...