Laurie Anderson gives a free performance at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell in NYC tonight for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors series. "Often imitated but never duplicated, Anderson is the beatific mother of downtown avant-garde performance art," says the Village Voice. "She practices the dying art of enchantment, insidiously propagating a politically charged message through trance-inducing electronic mantras." The concert also features fiddler/composer Todd Reynolds with Carolina Chocolate Drops beat boxer Adam Matta and Luminescent Orchestrii's Sxip Shirey. Time Out New York names the show a critics' pick.

Wanda Jackson, who has been busy touring North America this summer with a number of headlining dates and festival sets, launches a two-week, 10-city tour supporting Adele on the British phenom's North American tour. The pair perform at Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre tonight, followed by shows in Portland, Seattle, Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Jackson continues her own headlining and festival tour next month.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free annual outdoor music festival held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, returns for its 11th run this September 30 through October 2. The festival's organizers are announcing the line-up through a series of music medleys. Among the already-announced performers are Punch Brothers, who performed last year, and Emmylou Harris, who will have performed at each of the festival's 11 years. Just added to the festival roster: The Low Anthem.

James Farm plays the Newport Jazz Fest, webcast live on NPR Music ... Laurie Anderson celebrates Shel Silverstein in NYC's Central Park ... The Black Keys inaugurate the Kanrocksas Music Fest ... Carolina Chocolate Drops open for Dylan, celebrate the Carter Family ... Wanda Jackson, k.d. lang play Edmonton Folk Fest ... Randy Newman concludes Australia tour in Sydney ... Punch Brothers play outdoors in MA ... Allen Toussaint joins Rita Coolidge at Telluride Jazz Celebration ... Sara Watkins joins the Decemberists at the Ryman ... and more ...

k.d. lang and will be the guest on today's episode of NPR's World Café, talking with host David Dye about Sing it Loud, her new album with the Siss Boom Bang, and performing songs from the record. lang and the band bring their extensive North American tour back up to her homeland of Canada with performances at the Regina and Edmonton folk festivals this weekend. The Regina festival's artistic director says: "She is breathtaking."

Randy Newman, who performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra over the weekend, concludes his Australian tour with two shows with the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House this week. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald laud Newman as "one of the greatest songwriters of the past 50 years," whose "work proves yet again that on the big questions, all too often the artists can illuminate the truth better than the essayists, the journalists and, perhaps less surprisingly, the politicians." His recent appearances on ABC Radio National's The Music Show and 702 ABC Sydney Afternoons are now online.

This past weekend, the Newport Folk Festival offered the sold-out crowd two beautiful summer days of music from performers including the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris, Wanda Jackson, and Chris Thile & Michael Daves. You can now listen to all of those sets online at NPR Music, from the ever "vital and contemporary" Harris to the "blazingly intense music" of Thile & Daves. The Boston Globe says that all the music proved "compelling and indebted to what preceded it."

The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, has announced its 2011–12 season, and on the schedule are four Nonesuch artists: k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang open the venue's concert season on September 23, Laurie Anderson follows with her piece Delusion in October, Cheikh Lô joins a multi-artist celebration of James Brown in November, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops play the Flynn in January.

Malian singer Oumou Sangare concluded her North American tour this weekend with shows in Brooklyn and Maine. "Regal, righteous and funky," exclaims New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, "the Malian singer and songwriter Oumou Sangare commanded the stage of Celebrate Brooklyn! on Friday night at the Prospect Park Bandshell." Through her music and lyrics, this longtime champion of women's rights took on "the traditional West African singer’s role as community conscience while delivering her messages with a modern kick."

The Newport Folk Festival features sets from Emmylou Harris, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Wanda Jackson, Chris Thile, Michael Daves, plus Sara Watkins with The Decemberists and a special Low Anthem benefit performance ... Kronos Quartet performs Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 at Northern Ireland's Walled City Music Fest ... k.d. lang has three shows in California ... Jessica Lea Mayfield heads South ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman close out duo tour at Marciac Jazz Fest ... Randy Newman continues Australian tour in Melbourne ... Donnacha Dennehy's Grá agus Bás closes out Cork's Reich festival ... Oumou Sangare plays free Brooklyn show ... Dawn Upshaw continues at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Fest ... and more ...

Sara Watkins will join Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion on another cross-country tour that will take them from Alaska to Alabama this August and September on their second-annual Summer Love Tour. The concert tours will consist of "evenings of passionate duets, hot jazz, Catchup, English Majors and Poesy" and such favorite Prairie Home Companion elements as Guy Noir Private Eye, the Cowboys Dusty and Lefty, and all the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

Newport music festival season gets under way this weekend, when the Newport Folk Festival returns, featuring several Nonesuch artists: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris, Wanda Jackson, and Chris Thile & Michael Daves, plus Sara Watkins with the Decemberists and a special benefit performance by The Low Anthem. James Farm will play the following weekend's Newport Jazz Festival. NPR Music will be broadcasting and webcasting full concerts throughout each event.