Punch Brothers will appear on NYC public radio station WFUV, 90.7 FM (wfuv.org), today at 1 PM ET, performing songs from their album Antifogmatic. Watch The Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night for their performance with Steve Martin. And tune in to A Prairie Home Companion Thanksgiving weekend, when Punch Brothers will be the musical guests. They open for Dave Matthews Band in two shows this weekend.

AfroCubism will be featured on today's edition of PRI's The World; Nick Gold, the album's producer, will discuss the project, some 14 years in the making. The Village Voice cites two early tracks on the album as "about as perfect a blend of AfroCubism's two dominant cultures as you'll ever find; the rest of the album sustains that high ... At long last, Gold and his cohorts have achieved something that lives up to its original promise, a direct link between the Old World and the new." All Music says: "a true musical meeting of minds between the two cultures."

Tune in to hear Stephen Sondheim on NPR's Fresh Air today; he'll discuss his newly released collection of lyrics, Finishing the Hat. Paul Simon, reviewing the book in the Times Book Review, calls it "a master class in how to write a musical ... given by the theater’s finest living songwriter" and says: "I would argue that Sondheim’s lyrics are deeper, more invisibly intricate and braver in their search for truth than those of any who have preceded him." Fresh Air says of Sondheim's Evening Primrose, just out on DVD: "Boy, does it make a case for the early brilliance of Sondheim."

Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen and ngoni master Bassekou Kouyate will be the guests on today's episode of NPR's World Cafe. Allen made his World Circuit / Nonesuch debut with the release of Secret Agent earlier this year. Kouyate performs on the album AfroCubism, due out this Tuesday. The latter album is featured on AOL Spinner, which that traces its roots back to the recording sessions that launched Buena Vista Social Club.

Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica launch their North American tour in Seattle this Friday. Their latest Nonesuch release, De Profundis, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered Sunday, among select albums for the fall. The album "plays through like a fascinating mix tape, with a surprise around every corner," says NPR classical producer Tom Huizenga. "It's fantastic ... a very heady but very listenable and terrific mix of music and politics."

Steve Reich is Composer of the Week this week at BBC Radio 3. Tune in all week to hear interviews with and music by Reich, including the British radio premiere of his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet. The Detroit Free Press gives Reich's new Double Sextet / 2x5 album a perfect four stars in an article that looks at music chosen for the Pulitzer and finds that "recent juries have rewarded some terrific pieces worthy of the acclaim."

AfroCubism is out in North America in just over a week, when the eponymous band kicks off a brief tour of the US and Canada. It was recently featured on The Strand from the BBC World Service, which calls it "a gorgeous mix of African and Caribbean traditions"; host Mark Coles calls the track "Jarabi" "one of the most beautiful things I've heard in a long time." The album was also recently featured on CNN International and earns four stars from the Daily Telegraph.

Steve Reich is next week's BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week. Each day next week, the program will present interviews with Reich and music from throughout his career, from 1965's groundbreaking It's Gonna Rain to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, featured on his latest Nonesuch album. "Just as composers like Beethoven, Shostakovich and Mahler captured their era in their compositions," says the BBC, "so Reich's music distills the pulsating rhythm and routine of 21st century urban life."

Sara Watkins will be on the big screen as a guest on A Prairie Home Companion as the show is broadcast live in movie theaters across North America Thursday, October 21. A high-definition video feed of a special Thursday night performance from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, will be sent via satellite to movie theaters live at 7 PM CT. Also on the show will be Old Crow Medicine Show, Joe Ely, and Andra Suchy.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby will appear today on WNYC's Soundcheck. The pair will discuss their songwriting collaboration on their new release, Lonely Avenue, and Folds will perform live. Tune in at 2 PM ET on 93.9 FM or listen online at wnyc.org. The pair performed last night as part of SPIN magazine's Liner Notes series at a benefit for the Housing Works AIDS Charity in New York City. Folds and Hornby continue their New York appearances with a performance on Thursday evening at Barnes & Noble's Union Square location for the series Upstairs at the Square.

De Profundis, the new album from Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, receives five stars from Audiophile Audition. It's a program "of such sheer delight and exquisite beauty that I felt emotionally ravished when it was over," raves the reviewer. "One of the best collections of its kind that I have ever heard." The album is a Pick of the Week on WNYC's Soundcheck and CD of the Week from KBAQ, which says the music creates "a deep feeling of hope."

Tune in to The Strand on the BBC World Service tonight to hear Ben Folds and Nick Hornby discuss their forthcoming album, Lonely Avenue. The Independent gives Lonely Avenue four stars, saying it "proves to be an intelligent, sometimes amusing, sometimes moving, but always engaging collection of songs, pitched somewhere between Randy Newman and an Anglo-American Divine Comedy." The Daily Express calls it "heavenly."