Emmylou Harris and Punch Brothers will be among the performers at the 36th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, to be held June 18-21, in Colorado. Punch Brothers, known for its boundary-breaking blend of musical styles, is slated to switch things up this year with a rare set of traditional bluegrass. Also among this year's participants are Elvis Costello, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Edgar Meyer, a longtime Telluride performer and Chris Thile's duo partner on a 2008 Nonesuch release. Thile first befriended fellow Punch Brother Noam Pikelny at the festival in 2005.

Dawn Upshaw performs in the West Coast premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Passion de Simone—the Finnish composer's oratorio inspired by French philosopher Simone Weil—tonight at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in his last season as the orchestra's music director. Peter Sellars directs. An encore performance takes place this Saturday night. Upshaw gave the US premiere of the piece during last summer's Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center.

Dartmouth College is hosting Philip Glass this week for a residency that culminates in a public event Thursday night titled An Evening of Films and Discussion with Philip Glass. The event will begin with the screening of two of Glass's film collaborations—Godfrey Reggio's Anima Mundi (1992) and the short film Evidence (1995)—followed by an onstage discussion between the composer and Margaret Lawrence, the director of the school's Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Mandy Patinkin began his ten-day residency at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London's West End last Thursday. The Independent gives the production four stars, saying this "meaty solo show" features "a programme that reveals not only Patinkin's range of emotional colours but also his technical virtuosity. From the baritonal hinterland of his vocal engine to those trademark high notes, the skirmishes between registers simply dissolve and the sound is as pure as breathing. Numbers that demand leaping nimbleness and difficult tonal coloration ... are despatched with seamless liquidity and utter conviction."

Mandy Patinkin celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first performance at New York's Public Theater last month with a two-week run of concerts at the famed venue. Starting this Thursday, Mandy takes the show to the UK for a ten-day residency at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London's West End. While the New York performances included three distinct programs—Dress Casual, Celebrating Sondheim, and Mamaloshen—the London shows are simply titled Mandy Patinkin in Concert and will feature works by a range of celebrated songwriters and composers.

Christina Courtin, the New York City–based singer/songwriter/violinist, is due to make her Nonesuch album debut this year. She starts the year off with a performance in the city this Thursday night at Le Poisson Rouge, with singer/pianist/composer Gabriel Kahane opening. The New York Times says Courtin's voice "feels uniquely otherworldly, as if it couldn’t possibly be entirely human born." Time Out New York lists her among the people to watch in 2009, praising "her commanding, undulating voice" and finding in her songs "an exquisiteness that extends beyond any genre ghetto."

The Black Keys are getting set to head south for the summer in a two-week tour of Australia, starting December 29 just outside Perth. You can catch some of that in-concert Black Keys energy with their recently released Nonesuch DVD, Live at the Crystal Ballroom, which the Boston Herald recommends it the perfect last-minute gift suggestion and "the next-best thing to seeing this dynamic rock duo in-person," with bonus features behind the scenes "of the awesome Attack & Release."

The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra performs the seasonally appropriate Adams nativity oratorio, El Niño ... David Byrne brings his "spectacular show" (Charleston Post & Courier) to Florida ... Elliott Carter's 100th birthday celebration continues at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and around the world ... Emmylou Harris considers Kitty Wells on NPR's All Things Considered ... Mandy Patinkin performs Mamaloshen and Broadway's finest at New York's Public Theater ... Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer join Garrison Keillor, Yo-Yo Ma, and Renée Fleming for A Prairie Home Companion ... Wilco plays on with Neil Young then headlines in Baltimore ... and more ...

Elliott Carter celebrated his 100th birthday last night with a concert at Carnegie Hall that featured the New York premiere of Interventions, his piece for piano and orchestra, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by James Levine, with Daniel Barenboim at the piano. The New York Times calls the occasion "a milestone in music history. And the 17-minute piece—though brainy and complex, like all of Mr. Carter’s scores—was somehow celebratory: lucidly textured, wonderfully inventive, even impish. This was the work of a living master in full command." The celebration continues this weekend with Making Music: Elliott Carter at Carnegie Hall, Day of Carter at Lincoln Center, and concerts in Chicago, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Basel, and Porto, Portugal.

With the holiday season bringing with it so many family traditions, one of the more welcome over the past few years has been The McGarrigle Christmas Hour, a concert at Carnegie Hall inspired by the repertoire of Kate and Anna McGarrigle's 2005 Nonesuch album of the same name. The album is a collection of traditional and contemporary holiday songs and a celebration of family and friends, featuring Emmylou Harris, Anna’s daughter Lilly Lanken, and Kate’s children Martha and Rufus Wainwright, all of whom will perform at tonight's show. Also included among the concert's special guests are Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Teddy Thompson, Linda Thompson, Jimmy Fallon, and Justin Bond.

Mandy Patinkin begins a two-week residency at Manhattan's Public Theater tonight in honor of the 20th anniversary of his first concert at the esteemed New York City venue. Accompanied by pianist Paul Ford, Mandy will alternate among three different programs, beginning tonight with Dress Casual, featuring music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Harry Chapin, and others; Celebrating Sondheim, a journey through the music and lyrics of the legendary composer; and Mamaloshen, an exploration of traditional, classic, and contemporary songs sung entirely in Yiddish.

Following his sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall with Kronos Quartet on Friday night, Glenn Kotche joined his Wilco bandmates for a sold-out show of their own at the Auditorium Theater in Rochester, New York. It was their first-ever performance in the city, leading Rochester Democrat and Chronicle to exclaim: "It was worth the wait ... as spectacular a show as we've seen this year."