The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF), the UK's largest contemporary music festival, gets under way today, and Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy's Grá Agus Bás will be the culminating piece in tonight's Opening Night concert. The all-Dennehy program will be performed by Crash Ensemble, with Alan Pierson conducting and featuring vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird, all of whom performed Grá Agus Bás on Dennehy's Nonesuch debut album of of the same name. Crash, an ensemble in residence at HCMF, will also bring Grá Agus Bás to the US in 2013 for performances with Dawn Upshaw at The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall.

Shawn Colvin joins BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris in session, recorded during her recent UK tour with Mary Chapin Carpenter, for the latest episode of his program, airing this evening at 7 PM GMT. Colvin performs songs from her latest album, All Fall Down, and talks with Harris about recording the new album in producer Buddy Miller's home studio; writing her memoir, Diamond in the Rough; and much more. Colvin concludes her tour as special guest of the band Heart this weekend before returning to the road with her own US headline shows.

Sara Watkins brings her US tour as special guest of Jackson Browne to a close this weekend. Before then, they give an intimate acoustic performance at the historic Paramount Theater in Denver tonight, which will be broadcast live at 10 PM ET on AXS TV. Watch a preview of the event here. Watkins launches a seven-city West Coast headline tour with Aoife O'Donovan in December and heads to the UK and Ireland in January.

Lianne La Havas stopped by Minnesota Public Radio's The Current yesterday to discuss her recently released debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?; her performance at the Mercury Awards, for which she was shortlisted; meeting Prince on her last visit to the Twin Cities; and much more. She also performs three songs off the new album. Listen to the complete show and watch La Havas' performance of the title track in The Current studios here. La Havas makes her debut on Conan this Wednesday night. Her Spotify Session is out today.

John Adams leads the Seattle Symphony in performances of his Harmonielehre and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto ... Carolina Chocolate Drops tour the East Coast ... Shawn Colvin joins Heart in Florida ... Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama are on the East Coast ... Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach is in Mexico City ... Emmylou Harris tours Australia ... James Farm, Brad Mehldau tour Germany ... Gidon Kremer tours Taiwan ... Kronos Quartet performs outside SF ... Lianne La Havas plays outside DC ... Punch Brothers tour the UK ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne ... and more ...

Brad Mehldau launches a month-long European tour starting with a five-show run of performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, followed by an 11-city tour with the Brad Mehldau Trio. The Orpheus tour, featuring the premiere of a new piece by Mehldau, kicks off with a performance in Moscow, followed by stops in Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf, and Vienna. Mehldau then meets up with his Trio for a set at Barbican Hall for the London Jazz Festival, followed by shows in Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey.

Lianne La Havas—pictured in the Tom Ford gown she wore as a nominee at last week's Mercury Prize ceremony—is the subject of a feature profile on NPR's Morning Edition, which examines her banner year including, not least, the release of her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?. As host Renee Montagne says in her introduction to the piece, titled "The Golden Girl of British Music," it "helps if you’re as talented as the young singer-songwriter we’re about to hear from." La Havas makes her debut on the Late Show with David Letterman this Thursday and plays three US shows next week.

Billy Bragg concludes his extensive tours of New Zealand and Australia, featuring music from the Mermaid Avenue albums ... Laurie Anderson takes Dirtday! to Minneapolis ... The Black Keys are in New Zealand ... Shawn Colvin joins Heart in Florida ... Dr. John, The Blind Boys of Alabama tour the East Coast ... Gidon Kremer has two shows in Tokyo ... Kronos Quartet plays Scandinavia ... Punch Brothers are in France; their Austin City Limits debut airs in US ... Joshua Redman performs in London, joins James Farm in Lausanne ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Missouri and Texas ...

James Farm—the collaborative band featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland—launch a 13-city tour of Europe at the JazzOnze+ Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, followed by tour stops throughout Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria, and Poland in the coming weeks. Redman kicks off the season's Wigmore Hall Jazz Series, which he curated, joining the Axis Saxophone Quartet in London tonight.

Natalie Merchant, who celebrates a birthday today—happy birthday!—joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to perform songs from Leave Your Sleep ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to LA ... Timothy Andres performs with ACME in Brooklyn ... The Black Keys' Australia tour hits Brisbane and Perth ... Billy Bragg's in Brisbane and Sydney ... Carolina Chocolate Drops cruise the Caribbean ... Shawn Colvin holds residency in NYC ... Nataly Dawn is in LA ... Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama tour Midwest ... Einstein on the Beach makes West Coast debut ... Gidon Kremer tours Japan ... Joshua Redman plays Coltrane in NYC ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Chicago ... and more ...

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach receives its West Coast premiere, nearly four decades after it was first performed, with three sold-out performances at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall this weekend. PBS Newshour marked the occasion with a look at this groundbreaking work and the career of its composer, which you can watch here. This weekend's performances of Einstein on the Beach are part of a major international tour that heads next to Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong.

Sara Watkins, who is currently on the final leg of her US tour with Jackson Browne, will tour the UK and Ireland in January and February in support of her acclaimed new album Sun Midnight Sun. The two-week, 13-city tour begins in Sheffield on January 23, following a series of US headline shows in December with Aoife O'Donovan, and includes a show at London’s Lexington on January 30 and a set at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.