The line-up for the 2020 Big Ears Festival has been announced, and as usual, featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Devendra Banhart, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, and Caroline Shaw. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 26–29, 2020. Weekend passes go on sale this Thursday.

Composer-performer Daniel Wohl, whose album État was released on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records in May, has released a video for the album track "Orbit." The generative music video, made by Ben Heim, is driven by sound data extracted from the music, evolving over time with the sonic landscape and can be seen here. Wohl will be the special guest of A Winged Victory for the Sullen on the duo's European tour early next year. The fourteen-concert tour begins in Amsterdam on February 20 and stops in Germany, Belgium, Ireland, and the UK.

Yola was named among "the best things we saw" at Farm Aid 2019 by both Rolling Stone, noting "her powerhouse vocals," and Billboard, which reports of the festival's "breakthrough artist": "An imposing presence with a massive, gospel-fired voice, Yola held the midday crowd riveted with songs from her debut album Walk Through Fire." One such festival performance, of the song "It Ain't Easier," can be seen here. It has just been announced that she will perform at Holiday Cheer for FUV at the Beacon Theatre in NYC in December and at Chris Stapleton's benefit concert in Kentucky next April. Fittingly, Yola has been nominated as Live Act of the Year in the UK's Independent Festival Awards.

Emmylou Harris, Kronos Quartet, Robert Plant, Chris Thile, Punch Brothers, Yola play Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco …Sam Amidon performs in Dublin … Laurie Anderson leads Lincoln Center Nightcap, plays duo show with John Zorn … Attacca Quartet performs Caroline Shaw in Boston … Devendra Banhart gives in-store in Singapore ... The Black Keys play Milwaukee, Detroit … David Byrne’s American Utopia begins Broadway run … Daughter of Swords tours California … Rhiannon Giddens performs at Met Museum in NYC … Lake Street Dive plays Massachusetts, New York … Brad Mehldau Trio tours Portugal … Gaby Moreno tours Germany …

David Byrne’s American Utopia begins its strictly limited engagement on Broadway at the intimate Hudson Theatre on Friday, with the official opening on October 20. The performances run through January 18 and follow a sold-out, year-long critically acclaimed international tour and pre-Broadway run in Boston. "A marvel of humanity and hope," exclaims the Boston Globe, "American Utopia brings wonder back to the world."

Rhiannon Giddens performed as part of NPR Music's multi-artist Turning the Tables concert at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in July, a celebration of "eight women who invented American popular music": Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Maybelle Carter, Marion Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Mary Lou Williams, Celia Cruz, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Giddens opens the concert, performing A.P. Carter's "You Are My Flower" with Courtney Marie Andrews, the spiritual "Deep River" with Lizz Wright, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Up Above My Head." You can watch it here.

Devendra Banhart plays Ohana festival in Southern California … John Adams conducts Philadelphia Orchestra, Leila Josefowicz in Scheherazade.2 … The Black Keys tour Midwest … Jeremy Denk gives solo recital in Reykjavik … Rhiannon Giddens tours Northeast … Emmylou Harris inaugurates City Winery Philadelphia … Gaby Moreno tours Europe … Nico Muhly, Timo Andres lead season opener at National Sawdust in Brooklyn … Robert Plant plays out West … Joshua Redman Quartet leads Jazz St. Louis residency … Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from NYC … Yola performs in New Orleans with Kacey Musgraves …

Chris Thile and Yo-Yo Ma—who made the 2017 Nonesuch album Bach Trios with Edgar Meyer—kicked off the Atlantic Festival in Washington, DC, this week with an eclectic medley of music from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, "Rabbit in the Log," and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." You can watch it here. Thile hosts the public radio show Live From Here, including with Rachael & Vilray on October 26, and leads his own US tour in the months ahead.

Randy Newman, who previously announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand for early 2020, will bring that tour to Europe next spring. The 23-concert European leg of the tour starts in Stockholm on May 17 and includes shows in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Ireland, and France, culminating in Paris on June 23.

Sam Amidon's 7" vinyl record Fatal Flower Garden EP (A Tribute to Harry Smith) is due November 15 on Nonesuch. On the EP, Amidon performs four songs from Anthology of American Folk Music, Smith’s beloved and influential 1920s and ’30s folk music recordings. Amidon and frequent collaborator Shahzad Ismaily play all the instruments; Leo Abrahams engineered, produced, and mixed. You can watch a video for "Spike Driver Blues" and download it now when you pre-order the vinyl here.

Gaby Moreno, whose new album with Van Dyke Parks, ¡Spangled!, is out next week, begins a six-week tour of Europe on Tuesday, with concerts throughout Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, and Spain. Moreno then returns to the US for a three-week Roots Rising! tour of the West with Liz Vice and Matt Andersen, followed by a concert in New York City and a performance as special guest of Ben Folds and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. You can watch her perform "Weeper's Lullaby" from the latest Live From Here with Chris Thile here.

Kronos Quartet, Sam Amidon perform at FreshGrass Festival at MASS MoCA … The Black Keys headline Life Is Beautiful … John Adams’s new work premieres with San Francisco Symphony … Jeremy Denk gives solo recital in Pennsylvania … Alarm Will Sound performs Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger in Boston … Rhiannon Giddens tours US South … Brad Mehldau Trio tours Benelux … Mountain Man closes out Magic Ship tour in North Carolina … Robert Plant brings Carry Fire to Outlaw Music, Bourbon & Beyond fests … Chris Thile performs in upstate New York ... Yola tours US Midwest …