Brad Mehldau and the musicians featured on his 2010 Nonesuch release, Highway Rider, gave the final live performance of the album, at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles Friday night. The Los Angeles Times says: "It wasn't classical-jazz, jazz-pop or some other hyphenated hybrid. It was just a great ride." Mehldau gives a New York Times–recommended solo set at Carnegie Hall this week, featuring songs off Highway Rider and Mehldau's forthcoming Live in Marciac, as well as works by Brahms, Bach, Fauré, Radiohead, and Jeff Buckley.

Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman give final live performance of complete Highway Rider at Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA ... Timothy Andres plays in NYC's Ecstatic Music Festival ... The Black Keys' Austin City Limits set airs on PBS ... Shawn Colvin plays Washington state ... Ben Folds kicks off tour in Minneapolis ... Philip Glass pays tribute to Allen Ginsberg with Patti Smith in Paris ... Wanda Jackson, Jack White play sold-out shows in NYC, LA ... Audra McDonald sings at Utah State  ... Randy Newman has solo shows in Arkansas, Texas ... Punch Brothers play three shows in the Midwest ...  Allen Toussaint launches weekly series in NYC ... Dawn Upshaw sings Bartók, Berio with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra ... and more ...

Wanda Jackson rocked out with Jack White and The Third Man House Band on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing "Shakin' All Over," the opening track of her forthcoming album, The Party Ain't Over. "Wasn't that tremendous!" Letterman exclaimed. "That was fantastic." Watch it here. Nonesuch is giving away tickets to their sold-out shows in New York and LA, which the Los Angeles Times calls "a can't miss scorcher of an evening."

Jessica Lea Mayfield’s Nonesuch Records debut, Tell Me, is due out February 8 and is now available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with an exclusive signed 7” of the album’s first single, “Our Hearts Are Wrong.” Mayfield will tour throughout 2011, including shows with The Avett Brothers and Justin Townes Earle as well as newly added headlining dates to follow the release of the album.

Ben Folds brought 2010 to a close on a high note, with his Nick Hornby collaboration, Lonely Avenue, having made a number of year-end best lists and The Sing-Off, the NBC singing competition of which he was a judge, a smash hit. Folds is now set to bring music from both to venues across the US as he launches his 2011 tour with support from Sing-Off finalists Street Corner Symphony. Folds then tours Europe, Australia, and Japan in the coming months.

Carnegie Hall has just announced its 2011–2012 season, which will feature performances by a number of artists familiar to Nonesuch Journal readers, including Audra McDonald, Kronos Quartet, Richard Goode, Dawn Upshaw, Alarm Will Sound, and, making his Carnegie Hall premiere, Cheikh Lô. The Carnegie Hall season will also see the New York premiere of works by John Adams, Philip Glass, and Louis Andriessen.

The lineup for the 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (a.k.a. Jazz Fest) has just been announced, and, as always, there's much to look forward to when the festivities get under way this spring. Jazz Fest will be held at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans the weekends of April 29–May 1 and May 5–8. Among this year's performers are The Low Anthem, Punch Brothers, hometown favorites Allen Toussaint and Nicholas Payton, and Wilco.

Ride, Rise, Roar, the concert film documenting David Byrne's 2008-09 tour, Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno, receives its UK premiere today in a one-night-only event screening. Byrne will attend the premiere at the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton, London, and participate in a live post-screening Q&A that will be simulcast to dozens of cinemas across the UK. Wired calls it "a downright beautifully shot and edited concert film." Watch the trailer here.

As President Obama hosts Chinese President Hu at the White House, composer John Adams prepares for the Metropolitan Opera premiere of his groundbreaking 1987 opera Nixon in China, which explores President Nixon’s meeting with Mao Tse-tung nearly 40 years ago. New York classical music station WQXR is hosting a special preview tonight, featuring a conversation with Adams and director Peter Sellars, plus performances from the cast. Nonesuch will reissue the Grammy-winning original cast recording of Nixon in China on February 1.

After sharing a bill at The Wiltern in Los Angeles next week, The Low Anthem will join Iron and Wine on the road for two weeks in April. Before that, The Low Anthem will embark on a headlining tour in support of its forthcoming Nonesuch release, Smart Flesh, due out February 22, including a performance at New York City's Bowery Ballroom on March 8. The album is available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with a limited-edition poster signed by the band.

Kronos Quartet, fresh off their multi-concert run at the Sydney Festival, is slated to be featured in a mini-festival of their own: Kronos in Glasgow. From May 12 through 15, Glasgow’s Concert Halls will welcome Kronos Quartet and some very special guest collaborators, hand-picked by Kronos, for a world exclusive international program of events across Glasgow, including the Scottish premiere of Steve Reich's new work WTC 9/11.

Wanda Jackson will be premiering a brand new retro-style video of the Bob Dylan great “Thunder on the Mountain” on Tuesday, January 18, on AOL Music. Check out a teaser to the hip-shakin, bone-rattlin’ video here. Jackson will also be performing live at Third Man Records in Nashville that same day, with Jack White and The Third Man House Band. Their special record release shows in New York and Los Angeles are fully sold-out, but Nonesuch is giving away a pair of tickets to each. Enter here.