Brad Mehldau takes a night away from his Trio tour to play a special duo set with label mate Joshua Redman tomorrow night at the Christuskirche in Mannheim, Germany. The Financial Times, in its review of the Trio's recent show at London's Barbican, says of Brad: "Mehldau creates gently undulating soundscapes of gradually gathering intensity. Starting with the simplest of motifs, he develops an intricate tapestry of melodic details, chordal voicings and dense cross-rhythms." The Guardian calls the Trio's concert take on Sufjan Stevens' "Holland" "a lambent, implausibly lovely improvisation."

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer bring their tour of the States to a close next Wednesday at Carnegie Hall. Nonesuch released their eponymous debut duo disc last month, along with a special deluxe edition that also includes a DVD full of concert performances and behind-the-scene footage. Audiophile Audition gives it five stars, concluding: "When you combine these two musicians, you get magic. Of course, it’s magic that explodes out of any boundaries that you might want to impose on them ... In a word, it’s wonderful."

Brad Mehldau has kicked off the European leg of his fall tour with his Trio, whose performance earlier this week at London's Barbican earned four stars from both The Times (UK) and The Guardian. "From the opening left-hand phrases of Brad Mehldau's 'Dream Sketch,' there wasn't a finger out of place in two hours of music-making," reports The Times. "This was a trio whose members were in perfect accord with one another ... [and] demonstrated a level of telepathic co-operation rare not only in jazz, but music of any sort." Metro concurs, adding: "The Brad Mehldau Trio is the quintessential modern piano outfit."

The closing concert of Isabel Bayrakdarian's North American tour celebrating the music of Armenian composer Gomidas Vartabed was held in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Monday. It featured songs from the soprano's Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, which the New York Times calls "irresistible." In the recital, says the Times, she "playfully gamboled through childlike melodies, her voice warm and sunny; in the laments her plaintive tone cut to the heart. She made sinuously winding melismatic passages seem effortless."

Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian concluded her North American tour featuring works from her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, last night in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. The New York Times previewed the show with a feature on Gomidas, Armenia's national composer, and calls the new CD "what may be the best shot Gomidas has had to shine for the Western classical music world" in 100 years. On Sunday, Bayrakdarian performed in Boston's Jordan Hall, leading the Boston Globe to note that "even those unfamiliar with Gomidas's work found plenty to savor in Bayrakdarian's ravishing performance." The evening's "most emotional moments ... achieved a riveting purity."

Audra McDonald joins Barbara Cook, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, and The Black Keys join Devo for election-year benefits ... John Adams's Doctor Atomic continues at the Met; the Pittsburgh Symphony recognizes Adams as its Composer of the Year ... Laurie Anderson brings Homeland to Canada ... Sérgio and Odair Assad join the Turtle Island Quartet for a college tour ... Isabel Bayrakdarian’s Celebrating Gomidas Vartabed heads to her home country of Canada ... David Byrne disproves "this groove is out of fashion" at two tour stops in Missouri ... Shawn Colvin plays two shows in Mississippi ... Philip Glass shows “Glass overflows with the beauty of Cohen's poems" at Melbourne Festival ... Richard Goode performs in Kansas City ... k.d. lang tours the Midwest ... The Magnetic Fields’ fall tour heads south ... Randy Newman plays the Golden State and offers BBC his "desert island discs" ... Nicholas Payton continues residency at Jazz at Lincoln Center ... Joshua Redman plays 25th annual Festival Miami ... Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer return to the road ... and more ...

Randy Newman brings his tour to his home state of California this weekend. After last night's concert in Tennessee, the Knoxville News calls Randy "one of the great songwriters of the rock era—and a guy who never takes the easy way with a lyric." Leading to this weekend's concerts, the Monterey Herald says Randy's "musical arrangements are brilliant and each song's personality is matched by the tone of the composition; he's the master at placing notes and rhythm in line with the character and its predicament"; and the Santa Barbara Independent says Harps and Angels "finds the native Californian at his satirical best."

The Magnetic Fields began their fall tour this past Friday at the State Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Beforehand, Stephin Merritt stopped by The Current studio to talk and perform a few solo acoustic songs. The next night brought a show in Madison, Wisconsin, where, reports The Isthmus, Merritt's "astonishing and sweeping body of work" was "yielded up wit, emotional nuance, memorable hooks and crisp, careful rhymes." Then came a Dallas show the Star-Telegram termed a "victory lap for one of the most idiosyncratic and interesting bands in indie pop" and the Dallas Morning News lauded as "meticulous chamber-pop."

The Black Keys' US tour made its way back home to Akron, Ohio, last Saturday night to play E. J. Thomas Hall. The Cleveland Plain Dealer says the band turned the venue into "one big juke joint" for the nearly 3,000 fans. Pat and Dan, whose "music brilliantly reinvents the wheel," were treated "like conquering heroes" in this "unforgettable evening." They created "primal rock 'n' roll" that "all but demanded a visceral reaction." The band plays Akron again this Friday, at the Civic Theatre, with another group of hometown favorites, Devo, to raise funds for the Obama Presidential campaign's efforts in the all-important swing state.

Isabel Bayrakdarian's Remembrance Tour, celebrating the music of Gomidas Vartabed, whose work is featured on her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, continues this Friday at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall. Her most recent performance, last week at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver, was "a rarity singing a rarity," writes the Vancouver Sun—Bayrakdarian for "her lustrous voice and emotional commitment to the material she finds meaningful." The Nonesuch recording is "wonderful," says the Sun, and the live performance of it "captivated us with the beauty of the songs."

Randy Newman took his tour of songs from his latest album, Harps and Angels, and throughout his career, across the Midwest this past weekend. The Waukegan, Illinois, paper The Lake Forester says Randy "was in top form Friday" at the show there, with the performance showing "how well constructed Newman's songs are." The Kansas City Star concludes after Randy's Saturday show in that city: "No one does what he does the way he does it: sing and comment with humor, sadness, anger and regret about everything from world history, politics, religion and socio-economics to love, death, sex and parenthood."

Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile perform Bach at a Barack Obama benefit in NYC ... Adams and Rzewski works are on the program for an Obama benefit in Baltimore, while the Pittsburgh Symphony pairs Adams with Dvořák and the San Francisco Ballet brings Mark Morris's Joyride, with Adams music, to New York ... Laurie Anderson returns to Homeland after a trip to the Arctic ... Andriessen meets Kubrick when the Dresdner Sinfoniker pairs De Stijl with 2001 ... The Black Keys return to Akron ... David Byrne heads West with Eno songs, a white-clad band, and dancers ... Bill Frisell sets up shop at Yoshi's in Oakland with Russell Malone ... Philip Glass plays to the poetry of Leonard Cohen at the Sydney Opera House ... k.d. lang is back on tour in California ... The Magnetic Fields kick off their fall tour in Minneapolis ... Randy Newman plays the Midwest too ... Choreographer de Keersmaeker's Steve Reich Evening plays two nights in Aix-en-Provence ... and more ...