This week, the New England Conservatory in Boston presents a two-day, four-concert mini-festival celebrating the music of Steve Reich. The composer will be directly involved in the events, leading rehearsals on Tuesday and working directly with Conservatory students in workshops on Wednesday. Kicking off the public events that night is a performance of Piano Phase. Closing the festival on Thursday night at Jordan Hall are two Boston premieres: City Life and Daniel Variations. The debut recording of the latter piece is due out on Nonesuch in early 2008.

"We were raised in a country where the borders between different types and styles of music are not very clear." So says Rio-born guitarist Sérgio Assad, in an interview with the Adelaide Advertiser. In their upcoming concerts with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, as part of the Adelaide International Guitar Festival, Sérgio and Odair Assad present Piazzolla's genre-bending piece Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, along with Rodrigo's Concierto Madrigal.

In the midst of a tour across the US, Caetano Veloso stopped for two nights in NYC, where he performed songs from throughout his career, focusing on his latest album, Cê, for packed crowds at the Nokia Theatre. "Lyrically, much of Cê is unabashedly carnal," says the New York Times. "Yet Mr. Veloso’s voice carries an abiding tenderness, and he sounded nearly as alluring on bitter new tunes (like 'Rocks,' a natural closer) as on vintage fare ('Sampa,' a natural singalong)."

Caetano Veloso's tour through California in support of his album Cê began earlier this week in Pasadena, and Variety magazine reports that the singer "sounded effortlessly contemporary. Even more impressively, he did it without compromise." For Variety writer Steven Mirkin, the rocking stage show brings comparisons to Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and the Strokes.

When Youssou N'Dour performed in upstate New York in 1994, he did so before a crowd of more than 150,000 at Woodstock ’94. This Sunday night, he’ll return to the region to play before a slightly more intimate, though likely no less enthusiastic crowd, at the Kingston, NY, Ulster Performing Arts Center. But as the town’s Daily Freeman reports, at least a few reminders of the spirit and sound of the original event at Yasgur's Farm in 1969 remain. The Washington Post recognizes Youssou as “the greatest contemporary singer from Senegal and possibly all of Africa," and of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take): “the album's sound is intricate, indigenous and characteristically exhilarating.”

Daily News Los Angeles recently spoke with Caetano Veloso, whom the paper calls "one of the most respected Portuguese-language poets in the world," in advance of a rare Southern California appearance last night in Pasadena. He plays tomorrow night in Santa Cruz.

Last month, the San Francisco Jazz Festival was the site of the world premiere of Glenn Kotche's Anomaly, which the composer performed together with Kronos Quartet. This month, two more Nonesuch artists join the festival's 25th anniversary celebration, when Caetano Veloso performs at the Nob Hill Masonic Center this Saturday, November 17, and Youssou N'Dour hits the stage for the festival's closing night, Friday, November 30.

The national tour of Sweeney Todd, based on the 2005 Broadway production recorded by Nonesuch, has joined forces with the studios releasing the Tim Burton–directed film version starring Johnny Depp for a special sweepstakes, reports Playbill.com. Prizes include a private screening of the film for the winner and 50 of his or her closest friends and copies of the Broadway cast recording. This follows an announcement of a contest by the film companies and MySpace to meet Johnny Depp at a global premiere of the film. 

Philadelphia magazine is giving away tickets to see Youssou N'Dour in concert next Tuesday, November 20, for his debut appearance at the city's Kimmel Center. 

Dawn Upshaw will perform Berio's Folksongs with the New York Philharmonic, March 5–8, 2008. Audra McDonald was originally slated to perform at the concerts, but has had to withdraw due to a scheduling conflict. 

On Sunday, Caetano Veloso made his Toronto concert debut, and the Globe and Mail takes the opportunity to weigh in on the ever-evolving performer it calls, approvingly, "a master of 'all is not what it seems.'" "The music of Cê in itself is prime Veloso in trickster mode. It's rock music that's a poke in the eye of 'rockism,' the elevation of certain rock music to exalted elite status ... But the music, whether audacious and driving or achingly melancholic, and from whatever period of his prolific songbook, was unfailingly stronger for any inherent contradictions." In advance of tomorrow night's show in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Times has published a profile of the performer examining how he has maintained what may be "the most varied career of any '60s icon."

Pianist Philip Bush reports in his blog, Mostly Music in the Midlands, from his weeklong tour through France with the Steve Reich Ensemble and conductor Alan Pierson performing The Cave, Reich's early '90s video-opera collaboration with Beryl Korot.