Tune in to hear Sara Watkins on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor ... Bombino tours Benelux ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter head East ... Dr. John is in the South ... Iron and Wine plays upstate NY ... Kronos Quartet performs Philip Glass in Vancouver ... Audra McDonald tours Texas ... Brad Mehldau's Mehliana is at Largo in LA ... Natalie Merchant joins the Alabama Symphony Orchestra ... Randy Newman goes to Galveston ... Joshua Redman is in Rome ... Chris Thile brings Bach to Boston ... and more ...

Pianist and composer Brad Mehldau kicks off a ten-day US tour in a new electric duo with drummer Mark Guiliana called Mehliana. The configuration presents Mehldau performing on Fender Rhodes and an arsenal of vintage synthesizers while Guiliana accompanies on drums and effects. The tour begins at The Triple Door in Seattle tonight and includes shows in San Francisco and LA, as well as stops in Illinois, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Mehldau then heads to Europe for a week of solo shows before he and Guiliana reunite for a two-week Mehliana tour of Europe and the UK. To celebrate the tour, Nonesuch is offering an early listen to "Hungry Ghost," a track off the forthcoming Mehliana album, due in early 2014. Listen here.

Bombino, whose Nonesuch Records debut album, Nomad, was released earlier this year, launches the latest leg of his world tour with a performance at Poppodium Tilburg in the Netherlands, Thursday night. The 30-day European tour continues with additional stops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, and Finland, before heading to the UK for a seven-city run there, followed by a return to the Continent for several shows in Switzerland, France, and Italy. Bombino and his band then make their way across the Atlantic for a North American tour starting in November.

The ninth annual Holiday Cheer for FUV concert will bring an evening of collaboration to the Beacon Theatre: Iron & Wine and Friends, featuring Calexico as house band for a one-time evening of song and camaraderie. The show will take place Tuesday, December 10, at 8 PM and will benefit New York public radio station 90.7 FM WFUV. Joining them will be songwriter/performer Nick Lowe, plus other artists to be announced. Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on Friday, October 18, at noon.

Jeremy Denk performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations at The Kennedy Center and Chicago Symphony Center ... Alarm Will Sound kicks off Metropolitan Museum of Art residency ... Sam Amidon rounds out US tour in LA ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter tour the US ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell take tour to Texas ... Gidon Kremer is in Germany ... Kronos Quartet is in Wisconsin ... Audra McDonald sings a Chicago Symphony Center ... Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club closes out US tour in NYC ... Joshua Redman tours Netherlands ... Chris Thile is in the South ... Rokia Traoré plays Paris ... and more ...

Alarm Will Sound begins two important components of its 2013–14 concert season this week: its second "St. Louis season" and its season-long residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The latter comprises four concerts, starting this Friday and including the New York premiere of Steve Reich's new piece, Radio Rewrite, on an all-Reich program November 16.

St. Louis Symphony performs John Adams’s new Saxophone Concerto ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter resume duo tour in Midwest ... Jeremy Denk gives solo recitals in upstates New York ... Richard Goode is in Copenhagen ... Emmylou Harris returns to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass with Rodney Crowell and in Kate McGarrigle tribute ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica perform in Germany ... k.d. lang sings at LA's Hammer Museum gala ... Audra McDonald sings in Queens ... Brad Mehldau, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra give US premiere of new Mehldau piece ... Natalie Merchant joins New Jersey Symphony Chamber Orchestra ... Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club is in Atlanta ... Joshua Redman tours Europe ... Chris Thile performs solo out West ... Rokia Traoré brings Beautiful Africa to Réunion ... Sara Watkins plays in Southern California ... and more ...

Brad Mehldau joins the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for the US premiere of his Variations on a Melancholy Theme, which he says sounds “as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues." Also on the program are works by Brahms and Beethoven. The three-city tour includes stops in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and the New York premiere at Carnegie Hall. Mehldau then kicks off a ten-day US tour of Mehliana, a new electric duo with drummer Mark Guiliana, and heads to Europe for a week of solo shows before a two-week Mehliana tour of Europe and the UK.

Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile—who, with his fellow Punch Brothers, performed at the unforgettable benefit concert Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” inspired by music from the upcoming Coen Brothers’ film, Inside Llewyn Davis, in New York City on Sunday—kicks off a solo tour performing music from his new album, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, at Meany Hall for the Performing Arts in Seattle tonight. The tour makes its way across the US West, down South, and into the Midwest before heading to the Northeast for stops including a sold-out New York City show in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Thile heads to Europe in November. 

The one-night only benefit concert inspired by music from the upcoming Coen Brothers’ film, Inside Llewyn Davis, takes place at The Town Hall in New York City Sunday; Showtime will air the concert December 13 ... Sam Amidon tours Northeast with Josh Ritter ... Laurie Anderson exhibition opens in Austin ... Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club tour Midwest ... Jeremy Denk joins Colorado University Symphony in Boulder ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell kick off California leg of US tour ... Iron and Wine hits Chicago and Toronto ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica join Slava's Snow Show in Russia ... Audra McDonald opens Koerner Hall season in Toronto ... Punch Brothers play Wide Open Bluegrass in Raleigh ... Joshua Redman is in Iowa ... Rokia Traoré plays the Düsseldorf fest ... and more ...

Chris Thile joins Garrison Keillor for a live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion from Minnesota, then hits Brooklyn's Bluegrass Bash with guitarist Michael Daves ... John Adams's Saxophone Concerto receives US premiere in Baltimore ... Sam Amidon joins Bill Frisell at Jazz at Lincoln Center ... Laurie Anderson performs in Ithaca ... Jeremy Denk joins Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra ... Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Orquest Buena Vista Social Club tour California ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell play Petty Fest in Nashville ... Iron and Wine tours Canada ... Lianne La Havas is in Tokyo ... Audra McDonald plays Midwest universities ... Kate McGarrigle concert film screens in LA ... Joshua Redman inaugurates Wigmore Hall jazz season ... Dawn Upshaw is guest of honor at MATA gala benefit in NYC ... 

Pat Metheny, who won his 20th Grammy Award earlier this year for his 2012 album Unity Band, has announced the expansion of that band, featuring Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, and Ben Williams, to include multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi in the Pat Metheny Unity Group. The Unity Group will release a new album on Nonesuch Records in 2014 (details to come) and will launch a world tour in February in North America, followed by Europe in the spring. Fan ticket pre-sales begins today. "The Unity Band project was life-changing for me," writes Metheny. "With Giulio added to the core-four of us ... this is one of the strongest bands I have ever had. Just about anything will be possible."