Singer-songwriter Conor Oberst has signed to Nonesuch Records, which releases his new solo album Upside Down Mountain on May 19, 2014. Pre-order details to come. Prior to the album release, a limited-edition seven-inch single will be released exclusively for Record Store Day (Saturday, April 19), with the album track “Hundreds of Ways,” which you can hear here, and album outtake “Fast Friends” on the B-side. Oberst kicks off the first leg of a world tour May 8 in North Carolina with Dawes as special guests. Tickets go on this Friday, February 14. 

Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) has announced two one-night-only April concert events featuring Nonesuch artists Carolina Chocolate Drops with Twyla Tharp (April 10) and Emmylou Harris on her Wrecking Ball Tour with Daniel Lanois, Steven Nistor, and Jim Wilson (April 12). These two shows serve as precursors to BAM’s larger celebration of Nonesuch’s 50th anniversary this fall (the full slate of fall shows will be announced shortly). BAM has fostered a longtime artistic connection with Nonesuch and its dedication to cultivating outstanding talent in a wide variety of musical genres.

Joshua Redman's "dashing post-bop quartet" (New Yorker) makes its Jazz at Lincoln Center debut  ... Alarm Will Sound continues Missouri run ... Carolina Chocolate Drops are in Florida ... Shawn Colvin concludes Transatlantic Sessions UK tour ... Jeremy Denk plays Beethoven and Ligeti in Virginia ... Fatoumata Diawara kicks off US tour in Midwest ... Richard Goode tours Scotland ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica close out US tour ... Kronos Quartet marks Kronos: Under 30 premiere ... Brad Mehldau is in NYC ... Pat Metheny Unity Group brings Kin (←→) to Florida ... Chris Thile kicks off solo tour in Arizona ... Dawn Upshaw tours Australia ... and more ...

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.