"Composer, pianist and living legend Allen Toussaint has helped shape the sound of R&B, soul and funk while infusing a little bit of New Orleans into it," says KCRW in naming as yesterday's Top Tune the Thelonius Monk–penned title track of Toussaint's forthcoming Nonesuch solo debut, The Bright Mississippi. Toussaint will perform during both weeks of the 40th anniversary New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which runs April 24–30 and May 1–3. Given his prominent place in the festival and the city's musical history, it's no surprise that Toussaint has made his way onto the official JazzFest 2009 poster, by artist James Michalopoulos.

Dan Auerbach was the featured guest on yesterday's episode of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Dan and band perform more than half the songs off his recent Nonesuch solo debut, Keep It Hid, live in the KCRW studios. At the end of the set, the show's host, Jason Bentley, sighs, "Man, you got some soul, brother." His favorite album tracks, he says, "really caught my attention as just soulful blues-rock of the highest order."

Richard Goode's series of concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra comes to a close Tuesday night. The Boston Globe, in a preview of this May's release of Goode's complete piano concertos with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, looks back at the pianist's 1993 collection of the Beethoven piano sonatas and says it "stands as one of the most important statements made about this music in recent decades." Goode, whom the St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls "a musician's musician," will perform Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto this weekend with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Three Girls and Their Buddy, the popular series of concert featuring Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, and Buddy Miller, has just announced a spring and summer leg of its tour and have launched a special pre-sale for tickets that will allow fans to both order early and automatically be entered to win a chance to meet and greet the stars of the artists. Pre-sale customers will also have a chance to purchase a limited-edition tour poster, autographed by the artists.

John Adams conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony with Leila Josefowicz; San Francisco Ballet dances to Adams in Mark Morris program ... Afro-Cuban All Stars tour the Midwest ... Laurie Anderson performs a new collection at the Guggenheim ... Dan Auerbach closes out US tour, makes the Very Short List ... David Byrne launches European spring tour ... Bill Frisell tours the South with Greg Leisz ... Philip Glass launches four-week series in NYC ... Richard Goode joins Boston Symphony Orchestra ... Kronos reaches Rotterdam's RedSound Festival ... Brad Mehldau Trio makes festival rounds in Australia, Singapore ... Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone play Delaware's DuPont ... Joshua Redman Trio play sets in Sweden, Switzerland ... Steve Reich featured at the Salzburg Biennale ... and more ...

Steve Reich is the featured composer at this weekend's cycle of the Salzburg Biennale, a new festival for contemporary music. Events begin tonight with a performance of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase, featuring four works by Reich, and continue through the weekend with performances of Reich's works by the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Synergy Ensemble, Ictus Ensemble, and the composer himself. Interspersed are performances by a traditional Balinese gamelan, to reflect its influence on the composer.

Gerald Finley, the star of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, is the subject of a feature profile in the Globe and Mail, which examines Finley's work with "opera's great chronicler of modern history," particularly in a role that "sometimes feels like the nightly equivalent of a triathlon." Violinist Leila Josefowicz tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about performing Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur, which she will do again this weekend, with the composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The piece "takes you to a different place," she says, "with total strength vs. vulnerability at the same time."

Laurie Anderson is a featured artist in the Guggenheim Museum's current exhibit The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989, which examines the influences of Asian culture on American artists. In addition to the inclusion of her work in the exhibit, the museum presents two live performances by Anderson, titled Transitory Life: Some Stories, in the Guggenheim's theater, tonight and tomorrow night.

Kronos Quartet kicked off the fourth-annual MusicNow Festival last night with its first of two MusicNow performances at Cincinnati's Memorial Hall; the group performs again tonight with a program of music from Africa, Mexico, India, Greece, and the Middle East. Toumani Diabaté, who was scheduled to appear as well, has had to cancel due to an illness. The festival's organizers report that they are working to reschedule his performance for another day.

Kronos Quartet and Toumani Diabaté are set to headline the fourth-annual MusicNow festival in downtown Cincinnati's Memorial Hall, which runs tonight and tomorrow night. The festival is curated by Cincinnati native Bryce Dessner, of The National. For tonight's concert, Kronos will perform two new pieces commissioned for the festival, including one by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry; opening are The Books. Tomorrow night, the Quartet will open the show with music from across the globe, before Diabaté takes the stage with songs from The Mandé Variations.

Dan Auerbach's US tour, featuring music from Keep It Hid, his recent Nonesuch solo debut, continues tonight at Wonder Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. The Portland Mercury says Dan's new record "uncovers new corners of his talents. It's an instant classic ..." and expects he'll "give us a rock 'n' roll show of the highest order." Willamette Week says the album "emits sincerity and genuineness" and says "Auerbach’s poignant, emotionally charged lyrics and precise guitar work shine ...'" Dan's recent interview and performance at Minnesota Public Radio's The Current is now available online.

On Tchamantché, Rokia Traoré's recently released album, the Malian-born singer-songwriter "strikes out in a new direction while staying true to her African roots," says Dusted magazine. "The results are strikingly creative," producing "Traoré’s best work so far, and absolutely not to be missed." She performed last night at Sydney's Enmore Theatre in what Australian Stage describes as "two solid hours of groundbreaking, extra-African music ... by turns, startling, beguiling, seductive, spellbinding, exquisite, refined, rocking, intimate, infectious, affecting and 'funktional.' But, most of all, exciting, stirring the blood, vigourously."