Olivia Chaney kicks off a three-week North American tour featuring music from her debut album, The Longest River, at Roulette in Brooklyn on Wednesday, culminating in a return to NYC for a show at Joe's Pub on June 25. "With an earthiness to her expressive soprano, Chaney is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into the 21st century," says the New Yorker. "Baez, Collins, Mitchell, Marling," exclaims PopMatters; "the debut folk album by Olivia Chaney shows that she belongs in this company. It's pretty much perfect."

Conor Oberst kicks off a spring tour of the United States at 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia, on Wednesday, followed by stops in Wilmington and Boston, all with support from Larkin Poe. The tour continues with a set at The Governors Ball in NYC and late-night show in Williamsburg on Saturday, followed by a late-night Governors Ball After Dark show in Williamsburg; sold-out concerts in Maquoketa, Iowa, his hometown of Omaha, and Lincoln, Nebraska, all with support from The Felice Brothers; and a culminating set at Rock the Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

This Memorial Day weekend, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell take their Traveling Kind tour to Texas and South Carolina ... Sam Amidon is on NPR's Mountain Stage ... Laurie Anderson performs in Germany ... Devendra Banhart tours Spain ... Jeremy Denk plays Czech in London ... Rhiannon Giddens is in Augusta, Georgia ... Brad Mehldau, Mark Guiliana join forces as Mehliana in the Netherlands ... Robert Plant kicks off tour in Pacific Northwest ... and more ...

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters kick off their spring and summer tour, featuring music from the album lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar, at the Sasquatch! Festival in George, WA, this Sunday. The North American dates include a return to Bonnaroo and finish off at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on June 17. The Pixies will open five of the shows, and JD McPherson five. The UK and European leg of the tour begins July 10 and runs into August.

The Black Keys resume their Turn Blue world tour with a performance at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain, next Thursday, May 28. The tour continues into August with festival sets in Greece, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, and United States, including Governors Ball, Isle of Wight, Outside Lands, and many more. 

Olivia Chaney kicks off her spring tour with performances in Manchester, Edinburgh ... Devendra Banhart, Andy Cabic tour Spain, Portugal ... Rhiannon Giddens plays a weekend of sold-out shows at SFJAZZ ... Kronos Quartet performs in Wisconsin ... Audra McDonald sings in Virginia ... Joshua Redman quartet headlines the SLO Jazz Festival in San Luis Obispo ... and more ...

Guitarist Ry Cooder, country music songbird Sharon White, and country and bluegrass musician Ricky Skaggs are combining forces for a national road show. The three music vets have announced the "Cooder-White-Skaggs" tour, their maiden voyage as a musical trio. The tour kicks off in Salt Lake City on June 16 and continues with scheduled performances in Denver, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York City, and more. "You are going to hear four-part singing from the heart," says Cooder, "the finest and best instrumental activity in the land, songs you know and love and to top it off, the indomitable Buck White on piano who will turn your money green. Now who's happy? That's the way we're gonna stay so knock on wood!"

Rhiannon Giddens takes her tour to California with shows in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles ... John Adams conducts Atlanta Symphony Orchestra ... Sam Amidon closes out European tour in Oslo and London ... Laurie Anderson performs in Buenos Aires ... Timo Andres plays Beethoven in Brooklyn for WQXR marathon ... Jeremy Denk performs with Alabama Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell perform in Napa and Chicago ... Kronos Quartet celebrates Mother's Day at SFJAZZ ... Audra McDonald sings in the Northeast ... Brad Mehldau Trio continues its sold-out residency at NYC's Village Vanguard ... and more ...

Lianne La Havas, whose new album, Blood, is due out later this year, will perform three shows in the US in July: a set at the Essence Festival in New Orleans on July 5, and headline shows at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on July 7 and Bowery Ballroom in New York City on July 9. Essence Festival tickets are on sale now; tickets for the LA and NYC shows go on sale this Friday, May 8.

The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA has announced its 2015–16 season, and featured among the artists performing this season are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Randy Newman, Sam Amidon, Richard Goode, and Rokia Traoré. The season also includes works by Steve Reich, as part of a celebration of choreographer Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker, and the West Coast premiere of a new work by Timo Andres.

Sam Amidon kicks off European solo tour with three shows in the Netherlands ... Laurie Anderson performs at Princeton ... Devendra Banhart plays solo in Taos ... Jeremy Denk performs Ligeti/Beethoven with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in NYC ... Rhiannon Giddens heads from Colorado to Alaska ... Richard Goode performs in Virginia ... Audra McDonald is in Virginia too ... Natalie Merchant has two shows in Toronto ... Joshua Redman performs with Cornell University's Wind Ensemble ... Steve Reich takes part in Glasgow festival ... and more ...

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 Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Among the featured performers this year are Nonesuch artists Punch Brothers, Rhiannon Giddens, and Sam Amidon with Bill Frisell. You can see the complete line-up in the highly-recommended announcement video posted here.