John Adams led the LSO in the European premiere of his City Noir at London's Barbican Hall last night. The Evening Standard gives it four stars, calling the new piece "a dazzling showpiece." Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, receives its Canadian premiere at the Vancouver Opera tomorrow for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Next week, Long Beach Opera presents the first LA staging in two decades. Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed reflects on the opera's history, calling it a "classic" and "a marvelous, ever interesting" work.

Brad Mehldau and his forthcoming Nonesuch release, Highway Rider, were slated to be featured on tomorrow's episode of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, but the segment has been postponed to a future date. The Guardian, in a five-star review of the album, calls it "the real deal," saying: "Highway Rider's contrasts and dramatic entries spring constant surprises, and show how much progress the mesmerising improviser has made as a big-ensemble composer."

Louis Andriessen will be the featured composer of the 2010 Frontiers+ festival at the Birmingham Conservatoire in Birmingham, England, which runs all next week, March 15 through 19. Performances for Frontiers+Andriessen come from an array of musicians and student performers. The composer will be in residence as well, attending performances, working with student performers, giving master classes to composition students, and receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University.

Pat Metheny and his recent Nonesuch release, Orchestrion, were slated to be featured on NPR's Morning Edition tomorrow morning, but will be rescheduled for a later date. Metheny was featured on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction earlier this week. The album is full of "lush diatonic harmonies and sweetly melodic improvisations," says Sequenza21, but "what makes this disc so special" is Metheny's "interaction with a robot ensemble" and its "surprising richness and warmth."

The Low Anthem, fresh off a two-week tour with The Avett Brothers, kicks off its first US headlining tour with two shows in DC tonight: a free early show at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, which will be webcast live, at 6 PM ET, and a later set at the 9:30 Club. The Washington Examiner says of the band's Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, that "critics were rightfully awed by the elegant, intricate stylings of the songs." Spinner previews the band's upcoming SXSW stint, asserting that the album has "pushed the band to the forefront of the burgeoning indie-folk scene."

Kronos Quartet performs the first of four performances over as many nights in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall tonight as part of the Hall's season-long Perspectives: Kronos Quartet. Tonight, Kronos and composer Terry Riley celebrate 30 years of collaboration, with an all-Riley program featuring a world premiere, two New York premieres, and selections from Sun Rings and Salome Dances for Peace.

The Magnetic Fields have made their way across North America, back to the East Coast, where they began their Realism tour two months ago. The tour closes with three nights at New York's Town Hall starting tonight. The band heads to Europe next week for a two-week tour there. Spinner reports that the band played "to thunderous applause" earlier this week in Chicago; Chicago Reader notes the "outstanding lineup" on stage and the music's "thoughtful and inventive" arrangements.

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed will curate Vivid LIVE, a two-week festival at Sydney Opera House celebrating the world’s best contemporary artists and cultural interpreters, from May 27 to June 11. The primary focus of the festival will be on exploration through improvisation and collaboration. “For me," says Anderson, "the point is to present a lot of things that you wouldn’t normally go to but gives people the chance to jump off their street."

Kronos Quartet was credited, in a recent profile in the New York Times, with "reinventing the string quartet as a vehicle of limitless stylistic breadth." This week, Kronos proves yet again how true that is as it concludes its season-long Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, collaborating with numerous artists from around the globe in four concerts on four consecutive nights from Thursday to Sunday in Zankel Hall. Tune in to WNYC's Soundcheck today to hear Kronos and composer Terry Riley discuss the events and perform live.

Nonesuch artists converge on Chicago with The Low Anthem, Magnetic Fields, Mandy Patinkin, Punch Brothers all in town Sunday; Carolina Chocolate Drops, just there, play not far in Rockford ... John Adams is in focus at the Barbican ... Laurie Anderson talks astrophysics at NYC's Rubin Museum ... Vinicio Capossela launches US tour in NYC ... Christina Courtin closes Mike Doughty tour in California ... Bill Frisell Trio plays Boston ... Natalie Merchant judges poetry ... Pat Metheny continues Europe tour ... Joshua Redman is in LA ... Stephen Sondheim converses in Minneapolis ... Allen Toussaint, Blind Boys of Alabama play LA ... Sara Watkins performs in Paducah ...

There are just a few days left on The Low Anthem's tour with the Avett Brothers, after which the band will headline its own US tour, beginning in DC. "The Low Anthem isn't the first bunch of indie rockers to experiment with older string-band instruments and echoes of the songs of pre-1940 rural America," says the Washington Post. "But no one has done it better than this Rhode Island trio on its breakthrough album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin." The A.V. Club talks with front man Ben Knox Miller about the music.

John Adams returns to the Barbican in London this weekend for John Adams Focus. He introduces a screening of the film Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic, followed by the UK premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony, with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Next week, Adams will lead the LSO in the European premiere of City Noir, which, he writes in the Times, is "an imaginary film score, a musical study in cinematic colours and jazz-inflected energy."