The Low Anthem, Carolina Chocolate Drops continue confab at SXSW ... John Adams is in Paris for Cité de la Musique Forum John Adams ... Laurie Anderson airs Amelia Earhart in Basel ... Louis Andriessen gets honorary doctorate in Birmingham ... Kronos closes Carnegie Hall Perspectives with Young Artists Concert ... The Magnetic Fields bring Realism to the UK ... Brad Mehldau solos in Netherlands ... Pat Metheny plays Orchestrion in Italy ... Signature Theatre celebrates Sondheim's 80th ... Chris Thile performs Mandolin Concerto in Delaware ... Allen Toussaint plays Rome ... Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax perform in San Francisco ... and more ...

Natalie Merchant, whose Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep, is due out on April 13, will perform songs from the album at the PEN World Voices Festival's PEN Cabaret at New York City's (Le) Poisson Rouge on May 1. This year's PEN Cabaret will also include appearances by Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, Chilean story master Ariel Dorfman, and Georgian writer and performance artist Irakli Kakabadze. The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature takes place April 26 through May 2.

The 2010 South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) gets under way in Austin, Texas, today, with several performances by Nonesuch artists slated during the festival's run through the weekend from The Low Anthem, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Christina Courtin, who kicks things off with a set at St. David's Sanctuary tonight. Also at SXSW this week are world premiere screenings of The Magnetic Fields documentary Strange Powers and the David Byrne tour film Ride, Rise, Roar.

John Adams led the LSO in the European premiere of his City Noir at London's Barbican Hall last week, to which the Times (UK) gives four stars and calls "brilliant." Adams and the LSO bring to Salle Pleyel in Paris to launch Domain privé John Adams, an 11-day celebration of the composer's music there and at Cité de la musique, with six concerts, three premieres, and a forum with the composer. The Vancouver Sun describes last weekend's Canadian premiere of Adams's Nixon in China as “brilliantly effective.”

Remember: Daylight Savings Time ... Carolina Chocolate Drops bring "playful bent" to NYC's Bowery Ballroom ... Vinicio Capossela concludes US tour in California ... Perspectives: Kronos Quartet continues at Carnegie Hall ... The Low Anthem headline ... The Magnetic Fields play third sold-out set at NYC's Town Hall ... Brad Mehldau goes solo in France ... Pat Metheny's Orchestrion tour of Europe continues ... Nicholas Payton is in residence at Village Vanguard ... Chris Thile plays his Mandolin Concerto with Winston-Salem ... Jeff Tweedy performs solo benefit shows at Chicago's Vic Theatre ... Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax perform Chopin, Schumann at Barbican Hall ... and more ...

John Adams led the LSO in the European premiere of his City Noir at London's Barbican Hall last night. The Evening Standard gives it four stars, calling the new piece "a dazzling showpiece." Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, receives its Canadian premiere at the Vancouver Opera tomorrow for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Next week, Long Beach Opera presents the first LA staging in two decades. Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed reflects on the opera's history, calling it a "classic" and "a marvelous, ever interesting" work.

Brad Mehldau and his forthcoming Nonesuch release, Highway Rider, were slated to be featured on tomorrow's episode of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, but the segment has been postponed to a future date. The Guardian, in a five-star review of the album, calls it "the real deal," saying: "Highway Rider's contrasts and dramatic entries spring constant surprises, and show how much progress the mesmerising improviser has made as a big-ensemble composer."

Louis Andriessen will be the featured composer of the 2010 Frontiers+ festival at the Birmingham Conservatoire in Birmingham, England, which runs all next week, March 15 through 19. Performances for Frontiers+Andriessen come from an array of musicians and student performers. The composer will be in residence as well, attending performances, working with student performers, giving master classes to composition students, and receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University.

Pat Metheny and his recent Nonesuch release, Orchestrion, were slated to be featured on NPR's Morning Edition tomorrow morning, but will be rescheduled for a later date. Metheny was featured on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction earlier this week. The album is full of "lush diatonic harmonies and sweetly melodic improvisations," says Sequenza21, but "what makes this disc so special" is Metheny's "interaction with a robot ensemble" and its "surprising richness and warmth."

The Low Anthem, fresh off a two-week tour with The Avett Brothers, kicks off its first US headlining tour with two shows in DC tonight: a free early show at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, which will be webcast live, at 6 PM ET, and a later set at the 9:30 Club. The Washington Examiner says of the band's Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, that "critics were rightfully awed by the elegant, intricate stylings of the songs." Spinner previews the band's upcoming SXSW stint, asserting that the album has "pushed the band to the forefront of the burgeoning indie-folk scene."

Kronos Quartet performs the first of four performances over as many nights in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall tonight as part of the Hall's season-long Perspectives: Kronos Quartet. Tonight, Kronos and composer Terry Riley celebrate 30 years of collaboration, with an all-Riley program featuring a world premiere, two New York premieres, and selections from Sun Rings and Salome Dances for Peace.

The Magnetic Fields have made their way across North America, back to the East Coast, where they began their Realism tour two months ago. The tour closes with three nights at New York's Town Hall starting tonight. The band heads to Europe next week for a two-week tour there. Spinner reports that the band played "to thunderous applause" earlier this week in Chicago; Chicago Reader notes the "outstanding lineup" on stage and the music's "thoughtful and inventive" arrangements.