American Acoustic, a Chris Thile–curated festival at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, gets under way this evening and runs through Saturday. The performances feature collaborations between Thile and performers including Punch Brothers, Michael Daves, Edgar Meyer, and others. "One of the thesis statements of the week is going to be to look beyond genre and examine and celebrate the similarities between great instances of music making, rather than the differences," Thile tells the Washington Post.

Punch Brothers and Emmylou Harris return to Telluride Bluegrass Festival … Tyondai Braxton headlines Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco … Olivia Chaney tours England with Ben Folds … Lake Street Dive heads South … Pat Metheny tours Italy … Joshua Redman Quartet plays Seattle … The Staves play Brooklyn, Firefly Festival … Rokia Traoré peforms in France … and more …

Olivia Chaney plays six shows as special guest of Ben Folds on his UK tour with the yMusic ensemble, starting this Friday. She performs songs from her debut album, The Longest River, in shows at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Sage Gateshead, Brighton Dome, and Cambridge Corn Exchange, as well as two nights at the London Palladium. You can hear Chaney perform songs from the album on WXPN's Folkadelphia here.

The SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco has announced its 2016–17 concert season and featured among the performers taking the Miner Auditorium stage in the venue's fifth anniversary season are Pat Metheny with his new quartet; Brad Mehldau, revisiting his acclaimed 2010 album Highway Rider with his Trio, Joshua Redman, Mark Guiliana, and a chamber orchestra; and Emmylou Harris, who joins Rosanne Cash and Lucinda Williams in concert. Tickets go on sale to members on Saturday, June 25, and to the general public on Wednesday, July 13.

Lake Street Dive—which took some time from its ongoing US tour to perform at a special event at The White House yesterday!—has announced a North American tour for this September and October. In addition to previously announced shows at Wang Theatre in Boston and Radio City Music Hall in NYC, the tour includes stops in Nashville, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Knoxville, Madison, Providence, and more, culminating in two nights at Union Transfer in Philadelphia.

Joshua Redman kicks off a tour with his Quartet—pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers, drummer Gregory Hutchinson—at Kuumbwa Jazz in Santa Cruz tonight, followed by multiple-set stops in Portland, Seattle, and Denver. The tour moves east for sets at the Elkhart Jazz Festival in Indiana and in the Berkshires. Larry Grenadier swaps in for Rogers as the Quartet holds a six-night residency at the Blue Note in NYC for the Blue Note Jazz Festival. Redman and a different Quartet—pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Joe Sanders, drummer Jorge Rossy—tour Europe in July, stopping in Croatia, Germany, Czech Republic, and Spain.

Louis Andriessen's Theatre of the World receives European premiere in Amsterdam … The Bad Plus Joshua Redman plays Hollywood Bowl … Olivia Chaney, Joe Boyd perform in Wales … Michael Daves plays three trio sets in Massachusetts … Lake Street Dive tours the Southeast … Conor Oberst performs in New Haven and Brooklyn … Punch Brothers headline Huck Finn Jubilee ... The Staves are in Montreal … and more …

Randy Newman, Lake Street Dive play the Nelsonville Music Festival in Ohio … Richard Goode plays Beethoven in Poland ... Brad Mehldau continues Blue Note residency in NYC with Mark Guiliana, John Scofield … The Staves launch North American tour … and more …

The Staves embark on a 19-city North American tour beginning with a sold-out show at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on Friday, followed by shows in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Toronto, Nashville, Atlanta, St. Louis, DC, Brooklyn, and more, including a sold-out date at NYC's Bowery Ballroom and sets at the Firefly, Winnipeg, Newport, and Eaux Claires festivals. The English trio's newly released EP, Sleeping In A Car, is available everywhere digitally; CDs will be available exclusively at the Staves' shows.

Brad Mehldau, following a tour with the Brad Mehldau Trio for the new album Blues and Ballads, out this Friday, embarks on a trio tour of a different sort: he reunites with drummer Mark Guiliana, with whom he paired up for the album Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, and guitarist John Scofield for a six-night residency at the Blue Note in NYC starting tonight. "The omnivorously eclectic trouble these three get into will be worth the price of admission," exclaims the New Yorker. The trio will tour the UK and Europe in July, including sets at the Love Supreme, Montreux, Vienna, Gent, and North Sea jazz festivals, and stops in France, Italy, Spain, Israel, Turkey, and Germany, and reunite in the US for the Detroit Free Jazz Festival in September.

Lake Street Dive resumes its US tour with shows in Vermont, upstate New York, and Maine this Memorial Day weekend. Over the next month, the band makes its way along the East Coast for shows in Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, and more, then heads west for shows in New Orleans and Texas. The tour picks up again in August with stops in the Midwest and West, including three dates with Dave Matthews Band, and culminates in Boston and NYC in October.

Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields are currently working on a new album, 50 Song Memoir, for future release on Nonesuch Records. The band will perform music from the album live starting at the end of 2016 and throughout 2017. Three shows have been announced thus far: Brooklyn Academy of Music on December 2 and 3, 2016; Royce Hall in LA on April 27 and 28, 2017; and Moore Theatre in Seattle on May 6 and 7.