Chris Thile kicks off a month-long US solo tour with two performances in Arizona this weekend, followed by stops in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Davis, Santa Monica, Nashville, and Dallas. Thile then joins fellow mandolinist Mike Marshall for three Pacific Northwest duo shows before he and his fellow Punch Brothers tour together in March. Tickets for several recently announced Nickel Creek concerts this spring are on sale now.

Kronos Quartet kicks off Kronos: Under 30 / #5 World Premiere, four concerts at Z Space in San Francisco tonight through Sunday, featuring the world premiere of Bombs of Beirut, a new work written for the Quartet by Mary Kouyoumdjian. The young composer was selected from among nearly 400 applicants for this year’s Kronos: Under 30 Project, a commissioning and residency program founded a decade ago to support the creation of new music and develop lasting artistic relationships with the next creative generation. 

The Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling trio 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 US tour this spring and summer, with shows in Nashville, New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. A limited ticket pre-sale will begin Tuesday, February 4, at 10 AM local time at nickelcreek.com. Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, February 7. Further information about a forthcoming Nickel Creek album and more on the tour will be announced shortly. You can hear a sneak peak of the album track “Destination” here.

Pat Metheny Unity Group, featuring woodwind player Chris Potter, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, Ben Williams on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi, kicks off a world tour at Jackson Academy Performing Arts Center in Jackson, Mississippi, tonight; its debut album, Kin (←→), is out this week. The tour continues in North America for the next two months, followed by a two-month European tour in the spring. 

The Black Keys help kick off Super Bowl weekend with a sold-out show at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC ... John Adams leads Houston Symphony Orchestra in his City Noir ... Shawn Colvin launches UK Transatlantic Sessions tour at Celtic Connections ... Fatoumata Diawara tours Ontario ... Carolina Chocolate Drops take tour to Tampa ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell play two shows in North Carolina ... Iron and Wine plays benefit shows in Ann Arbor, Chicago ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica perform in San Francisco ... Audra McDonald is at the Library of Congress ... and more ...

Carolina Chocolate Drops kick off a months-long US tour at the Charleston Music Hall tonight, with a new lineup: co-founder Rhiannon Giddens, multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins, and two new members, cellist Malcolm Parson and multi-instrumentalist Rowan Corbett. The tour makes stops across the Southeast through March, up into the Northeast starting in the spring, then back South for MerleFest and more. Giddens recently gave a show-stopping performance at a star-studded Everly Brothers tribute in LA, where she "mesmerized the crowd" (LA Times) and "delivered a knockout punch" (Hollywood Reporter).

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra begin a rare, six-city US tour at the 92nd Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall in NYC tonight, followed by performances at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Stude Concert Hall in Houston, Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Harris Theater in Chicago, and Ordway Center in St. Paul. The tour program features works by Weinberg, Pärt, Britten, and Shostakovich, including his satiric comic opera Antiformal Rayok, with bass Alexei Mochalov.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2014–15 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, including Jeremy Denk, Richard Goode, Gidon Kremer, Kronos Quartet, and Audra McDonald, as well as an all–Steve Reich program and the New York premiere of a work by Jonny Greenwood.

Fatoumata Diawara returns to North America for a month-long winter tour of Canada and the US. This leg opens with a six-city tour through Canada, starting in Alberta tonight, followed by stops in Ontario and Quebec. The US run begins February 7 with shows in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, and California. Diawara will be joined by fellow Malian musician Bassekou Kouyaté for several shows. She returns to the States to perform at the Savannah Music Festival in April on a double bill with Bombino.

Jeremy Denk performs Ligeti, Schumann, and Mozart in Philadelphia ... John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic opens in Karlsruhe, Germany ... Timo Andres's new percussion piece premieres at Notre Dame ... Shawn Colvin rounds US solo tour in Florida ... Richard Goode plays Debussy, Schubert, and Chopin in Scottsdale ... Inside Llewyn Davis opens in the UK ... Iron and Wine celebrates KUTX's first birthday in Austin ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica continue at Canary Islands festival ... Natalie Merchant and orchestra perform in Colorado ... Sara Watkins plays SF Sketchfest ... and more ...

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriters Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle announce a special run of tour dates together this March: “Songs and Stories, Together Onstage,” in which they share the stage for a night of song swapping, duets, storytelling, and guitar playing. These two longtime friends and mutual admirers will share music from their extensive catalogues as well as some of their favorite songs by other classic songwriters. The tour kicks off outside Pittsburgh on March 18, followed by stops in Bethlehem, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Troy, Boston, Philadelphia, Durham, Nashville, and Richmond.

The Barbican's 2014 marathon weekend, May 17 and 18, will celebrate Nonesuch Records in the label's 50th anniversary year. Entitled Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records, this curated weekend of events includes five concerts taking place in LSO St Luke's, Guildhall School's new Milton Court Concert Hall, and the Barbican Hall, with performances from Jonny Greenwood, Kronos Quartet, Brad Mehldau, Timo Andres, Sam Amidon, Natalie Merchant, Rhiannon Giddens, Olivia Chaney, and others performing works by Greenwood, Mehldau, Andres, Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass, Frederic Rzewski, Henryk Górecki, Donnacha Dennehy, and more. Satellite events will include Kronos at 40 (May 13) and Jeremy Denk (May 24) with further events to be announced.