Laurie Anderson is in the Bay Area this week, performing her latest piece, Delusion, at Stanford tonight and Berkeley this weekend. Anderson spoke with San Francisco Chronicle about Delusion and her forthcoming album, Homeland. She heads to Lublin, Poland, next week for the CODES festival and to Sydney, Australia, at the end of the month, where she is curating the Vivid Live Festival with Lou Reed.

Dawn Upshaw has been named Music Director for the 2011 Ojai Music Festival. Next year's gathering, June 9–12, 2011, will mark the soprano's fourth appearance at the festival. Among those already signed on to participate are Richard Tognetti, Maria Schneider, and Peter Sellars. Upshaw makes her debut with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra later this month, performing works written for her by Osvaldo Golijov.

Sara Watkins's late-summer plans are already in order, with the month-long Summer Love Tour with Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion starting in August. There's more music to come in the first half of the summer too, as Watkins starts the season at Joe's Pub in New York City on June 21, then heads on tour for two weeks with Dar Williams.

Now that Natalie Merchant's brief spring tour of select US cities introducing music from her new album, Leave Your Sleep, has come to a close, Merchant has announced that, following her upcoming European tour, she will return to the States for a wide-scale, nationwide summer tour. Beginning July 12, the seven-week tour will be her first major outing in seven years. Merchant and her band will perform new material as well as favorites from throughout her career.

Celebrate Brooklyn!—one of New York City's longest-running free, outdoor performing arts festivals—has announced the complete line-up for this summer's concert series in in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Among the featured performers this year are Allen Toussaint, The Low Anthem, and the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, featuring Omara Portuondo.

Last week came word that The Black Keys would be touring with Kings of Leon for a dozen dates this September. The band has now added several additional dates, following the release of its new album, Brothers, including headlining shows with The Morning Benders, The Whigs, and Nicole Atkins. Patrick Carney talks with Billboard about the upcoming record and recent projects he and Dan Auerbach have taken on.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops kicked off their North American tour with what the New York Times called an "end-to-end display of excellence," during a free concert in Harlem presented by Carnegie Hall on Saturday. "They make short work of their instructive mission and spend their energy on things that require it: flatfoot dancing, jug playing, shouting." The trio next takes that infectious exuberance up north for two shows in Ontario.

Bill Frisell is in New York City this week to begin a two-week residency at the Village Vanguard. This week's line-up features the Bill Frisell Trio, with Eyvind Kang on violin and Rudy Royston on drums. Next week, Frisell leads his 858 Quartet, with Kang returning on violin, Jenny Scheinman on violin as well, and Hank Roberts joining on cello. Tonight, Portrait of a Man, a new documentary film featuring Frisell's music, receives its international premiere at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto.

Randy Newman tours Scandinavia and blogs about it ... John Adams hosts SF film screening ... Björk DJs in Brooklyn ... Carolina Chocolate Drops offer free shows in NYC ... Richard Goode solos in NYC ... Kronos plays for SF families ... The Low Anthem winds down tour ... Natalie Merchant plays PEN Festival Cabaret ... Pat Metheny plays Pacific Northwest ... Punch Brothers are in Baton Rouge ... Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau duo ... Allen Toussaint does double sets at Jazz Fest ... Rokia Traoré tours UK ... Dawn Upshaw performs Knoxville in St. Paul ... Wilco awes Australia ... and more ...

The Black Keys' schedule looked to be pretty well full up following the May 18 release of their latest Nonesuch album, Brothers, opening for Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden, back-to-back spots on late-night TV for Letterman and Fallon, and US and European tours through the summer. Now comes word that the band will open for Kings of Leon throughout September. Also, it seems Frank the Puppet Dinosaur is back with a crass new music video.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops begin a months-long spring and summer North American tour this weekend with a free shows in New York City as part of Carnegie Hall's Neighborhood Concert Series. The Knoxville News Sentinel says "the trio reclaims string band music with a sense of passion and fun that is infectious ... The members trade banjos, fiddles, guitars, other instruments and vocal duties with ease."

Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman kick off a two-and-a-half-week tour of duo performances in Burlington, Vermont, tonight. At one recent duo date, "the twosome played with an unerring touch," says the Albany Times Union. All About Jazz insists that anyone with "the opportunity to see these two jazz masters should not pass it up." Mehldau spoke with PBS NewsHour about his new album, Highway Rider, which also features Redman.