Kronos Quartet launches a three-year partnership with San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with two nights of concerts at YBCA's Novellus Theater. The program includes George Crumb's Black Angels, Bob Ostertag's All the Rage, Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes II, and new works by Aleksandra Vrebalov and Sahba Aminikia. "Kronos Quartet brings together an extraordinary legacy of evoking powerful expression with an unflagging commitment to supporting new artists and global perspectives," says YBCA curator Angela Mattox. "Tonight's program is emblematic of that commitment to support bold expression and profound human response."

Punch Brothers, Wanda Jackson, and Sara Watkins are all slated to perform at the 2011 Stagecoach country music festival, which will be held April 30 and May 1, 2011. Next year's Stagecoach marks the annual music festival's fifth consecutive year and will be held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. The festival celebrates more than five decades of country music with a diverse musical lineup, also including Rodney Crowell, Gatlin Brothers, Loretta Lynn, and many more.

The new documentary feature Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, receives its North American theatrical release at the Film Forum in New York City tonight; the band and the filmmakers will attend. A new Magnetic Fields exhibition opens at Other Music in Manhattan as well. In the coming months, the film will open theaters in Toronto and in cities across the US, including Los Angeles, Austin, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Seattle.

The Low Anthem and Carolina Chocolate Drops have been selected to perform as part of Lincoln Center's acclaimed series American Songbook, which celebrates the diversity of American popular song, from the golden age of musical standards to today’s most dynamic songwriting. The Low Anthem perform on January 13, Carolina Chocolate Drops on February 2, in the Allen Room, overlooking Central Park. The two bands are set to tour together in December.

Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica launch their North American tour in Seattle this Friday. Their latest Nonesuch release, De Profundis, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered Sunday, among select albums for the fall. The album "plays through like a fascinating mix tape, with a surprise around every corner," says NPR classical producer Tom Huizenga. "It's fantastic ... a very heady but very listenable and terrific mix of music and politics."

Pat Metheny closed out his fall Orchestrion tour of North America with a final concert in Connecticut on Saturday. The Hartford Courant describes Metheny as "a visionary artist, as he displayed throughout Saturday's performance"; his "one-man orchestra proved to be an exciting and constantly creative endeavor." MassLive, reviewing Thursday's show in Northampton, says Metheny has "found a way to create world’s tightest jazz band."

Laurie Anderson concludes California tour ... David Byrne talks bikes in Vancouver ... Carolina Chocolate Drops close out US tour in Illinois ... Shawn Colvin plays Pennsylvania and Maine ... Philip Glass gets NEA Opera Honors ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica close out Europe tour ... The Low Anthem joins Josh Ritter in Maine ... Pat Metheny concludes Orchestrion tour ... Joshua Redman Trio traverse Georgia ... Chris Thile does duo show in NYC ... Sara Watkins plays with John Prine ... and more ...

Ben Folds's fall tour, featuring music from Lonely Avenue, his new album with Nick Hornby, kicks off soon and now includes a New York City show December 14. That comes amidst the second season of NBC’s a cappella competition The Sing-Off. Folds returns as a judge on the successful series, which starts December 6 and will reward America’s best a cappella group with a professional recording contract and $100,000.

Laurie Anderson performs her newest work, Delusion, at UCLA's Royce Hall tonight, as part of her week-long tour of California. The Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed says of the piece: "To reveal too much would be to spoil amazement. A supreme dramatist, Anderson makes nearly every sentence a dramatic surprise, every visual image a bolt of wonderment." Nevertheless, he can say that Delusion is a "powerful, moving, incredibly rich work."

Brad Mehldau is set to launch his Highway Rider tour with the world premiere of the piece due at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis on November 5 and 6, followed by the New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on November 9. The latter is the first event of Mehldau's tenure as holder of the Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. As such, he has published the first in a series of blog posts on the Carnegie Hall website, offering insight on composition and improvisation.

Punch Brothers have returned to New York City for two shows. First up is T Bone Burnett's Speaking Clock Revue at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre tonight. The Boston Globe said the performances at Saturday's Revue debut "were uniformly inspired," with Punch Brothers "in fine rhythmic form"; the Boston Herald includes their set among the night's "stellar moments." On Thursday, the quintet joins Dierks Bentley on Live! With Regis and Kelly and at Brooklyn's Southpaw.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops have been named to The Root 100, the "list of young achievers and pace setters for 2010" from The Root, which says of the performers on the list: "We like them because they lift black music out of the box into which some critics try to shove it." The Boston Phoenix describes the band's recent Boston show as "a beauty ... The crowd were standing and packed, and hooting and hollering from the beginning." They conclude their US tour this weekend, then head to Europe.