The Punch Brothers' US tour is winding through the South this week, having stopped at the Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center in Birmingham on Saturday. The Birmingham News gives the performance four stars, calling Chris Thile "extremely gifted, both as an instrumentalist and a composer," describing the band's music as "a distinctly modern sound that can be dramatic or lighthearted, solemn or joyful, rollicking or dissonant," and praising its "stellar musicianship. Thile and his bandmates can play just about anything and ace it."

Punch Brothers bring their "dizzyingly fresh" (Birmingham News) music to Alabama ... John Adams conducts The Death of Klinghoffer to close Juilliard's FOCUS! festival ... The Black Keys head home to Ohio for two nights in Cleveland ... Kronos Quartet gives West Coast premieres at Berkeley ... Steve Reich continues his central role in Vassar's Modfest festival ... Allen Toussaint begins his Joe's Pub residency ... Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche play separate solo dates ... Dawn Upshaw and David Byrne tour Australia ... and more ...

John Adams's String Quartet will receive its world premiere tonight in a performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at The Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The concert is part of Juilliard's annual FOCUS! festival. The new piece is Adams’s second full-length work for string quartet, after 1994's John’s Book of Alleged Dances. The composer will participate in a pre-concert talk beginning at 6 PM. He leads the Juilliard Opera Center in a semi-staged production of The Death of Klinghoffer this Saturday night.

Dawn Upshaw begins a two-week tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Canberra Friday night. On the tour program are works by Mozart, Strauss, Bartók, and Upshaw's frequent collaborator, Osvaldo Golijov. The Australian lauds her "near-rapturous devotion to art" and her support of new music, in particular. "Upshaw's commitment to music goes beyond her choice of repertoire, however. It's in the texture and expressive shading of her voice, the aural evidence of her intelligent probing of text and music."

Steve Reich is a featured composer at this year's Modfest, an annual festival at Vassar College celebrating the music, art, poetry, and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. Modfest 2009 began late last week and runs through February 13, with a total of 18 events, including two all-Reich concerts, a conversation with the composer, a dance performance of works set to his music, a film screening and discussion, and a lecture about Reich's music.

John Adams has been named the first-ever Creative Chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, beginning next season, the orchestra's first with Music Director Designate Gustavo Dudamel. "John’s work, vision and big knowledge of all music, especially new music, is so deep," says Dudamel. The 2009/10 season gets under way with an Opening Night Gala concert, pairing Mahler's First Symphony with the world premiere of Adams's City Noir. As Creative Chair, the composer curates the West Coast: Left Coast festival, beginning late November, with a residency by Kronos Quartet; a new work by Thomas Newman; a jazz trio with Joshua Redman; and concerts led by Adams.

Kronos Quartet has been named the sole Perspectives artist in Carnegie Hall 2009/10 concert season. Perspectives: Kronos Quartet will feature five concerts over the course of the season, and the Quartet will lead a Professional Training Workshop through The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. Kronos has also been made the ensemble-in-residency for next season's West Coast: Left Coast festival at Disney Hall, curated by John Adams as the LA Philharmonic's first creative director. This season, Kronos has been added to the roster for the MusicNOW festival, premiering a piece by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry.

Joshua Redman brought the complete Compass Double Trio out last week for shows from New York City to Boston to Albany. The Boston Globe says Redman "put on the show of his life" at Boston's Berklee Performance Center. "Redman has always been an entertaining musician, but Thursday he played more confidently and powerfully than ever." The Boston Herald says that with "four of the best rhythm section players in the business ... Redman navigated a constantly changing rhythmscape with the serene intensity that has marked his career." The Schenectady Daily Gazette describes the Friday night set in Albany as "50 minutes that encapsulated the history of
post-Sonny Rollins jazz" and reached "heights only the best jazz bands
can reach."

Tonight marks the opening of The Juilliard School's annual FOCUS! festival, with a concert by the New Juilliard Ensemble featuring John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony. Adams's inclusion in this concert and throughout the festival proceedings reflects its theme this year of California: A Century of New Music. Two major highlights of FOCUS! 2009 are the world premiere of Adams’s String Quartet, performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and the festival's culminating event: a semi-staged production of Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer, with the Juilliard Opera Center led by the composer.

Youssou N'Dour and the Super Étoile band join the festivities at Glasgow's annual Celtic Connections when they headline a concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Auditorium tonight. Scotland's Sunday Herald recently profiled Youssou, calling him "one of the world's most soulful singers," possessing "a fluttering, virtuoso voice of extraordinary power," and standing out as "one of world music's few genuine superstars." Scotland's STV asserts that, of all the scores of artists performing at the two-week festival, "Youssou N'Dour will without doubt prove to be one of the main draws."

After performing the second of two consecutive nights at New York's Highline last night, Joshua Redman and his Double Trio head up to Boston to play the Berklee Performance Center tonight, then out to Albany for their last show with all five musicians featured on Redman's new album, Compass. Previewing Friday's show at Albany's The Egg, the Schenectady Daily Gazette writes of Redman's successful venture with the double-trio format: "The idea worked so well on record that now Redman is experimenting with the double-trio format live." Metro Canada gives Compass three-and-a-half stars.

Joshua Redman and his Double Trio—bassists Larry Grenadier and Reuben Rogers and drummers Brian Blade and Gregory Hutchinson—all of whom play together on the recently released Compass, play their second consecutive night at New York's Highline Ballroom tonight. The New York Times calls the new album "superb" and finds Redman "making some of the best music of his career." In last night's set, "Mr. Redman worked fast and fluid, never exhausting his options," says the Times. "At almost every turn he seemed intensely focused but unpressured and completely in command."