Laurie Anderson's new radio show, Party in the Bardo: Conversations with Laurie Anderson, premiered on WESU Middletown 88.1FM today—her birthday—and can be heard online for two weeks via WESU. "We are in a national emergency, with no boundaries, an emergency that keeps shifting from day to day, as marches and protests demanding racial equality and justice for George Floyd happen all over the country and all over the world," she says. "The pandemic has kept many people isolated for weeks or months with no definite end in sight. And what's amazing is that what finally brings people flooding out into the streets is not anger or greed or fear. It is a tremendous surge of empathy. It is a passionate and shared and long overdue outrage, a huge and global cry for justice. And this is being met by the President of the United States not with gratitude for the sense of fairness in the American people. No, this movement of empathy and fairness and solidarity is being met with tanks and threats. It's almost as if the surge of goodness itself cannot be tolerated, because it cannot be understood."

While we can't go out to take in great live music, here are some events taking place online to enjoy while staying home this weekend: The Black Keys are screening their 2008 concert film Live at the Crystal Ballroom all weekend; Sam Amidon is playing on Instagram live Saturday morning; Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi's there is no Other concert at The Met Museum's Temple of Dendur in NYC gets its digital premiere on Saturday; and Punch Brothers perform on an all-new episode of Live From Here on Saturday.

Randy Newman was on NPR's Here and Now today to talk with host Jeremy Hobson about his new song to promote social distancing, "Stay Away," proceeds from which go to support the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in New Orleans. They discuss life under quarantine, and Newman performs a bit of another new song he's been working on while at home. You can hear it here.

Chris Thile performed "This Is the Song (Good Luck)"—from Punch Brothers' 2010 album, Antifogmatic—with the band of his public radio show Live From Here, each in their respective homes, for a special #LiveFromHome broadcast on April 11. You can watch it here, as well as Thile's solo performance, and Punch Brothers' own 2010 performance of the song.

Sonos launches Sonos Radio, a free, ad-supported streaming radio service, available to Sonos customers today. The new service brings together more than 60,000 stations from multiple streaming partners alongside original programming from Sonos. In addition to genre-based stations, the service includes ad-free artist stations, including one coming soon from David Byrne, and Sonos Sound System, an ad-free station hosted by the Sonos team with guest-hosted radio hours from artists including Vagabon and Jeff Parker to come.

Well before we were all social distancing, Vagabon stopped by KEXP in Seattle on December 12, 2019, to perform a few songs live in the studio with her band. She spoke with host Troy Nelson and performed three songs from her self-titled Nonesuch debut album—"Secret Medicine," "Water Me Down," and "In A Bind"—as well as "Cold Apartment," from her previous album, Infinite Worlds. While her spring tour has been postponed, you can watch the KEXP live session here.

"What happens when a jazz virtuoso sets his sights on a cinematic sound?" ask All Things Considered host Audie Cornish. "Pat Metheny has done just that on his new album, evoking the plush and soaring landscapes of film scores. Reviewer Tom Moon says it's among the most ambitious projects of Metheny's long career." "He's pushing forward, seeking breathtaking and profoundly new vistas," says Moon. "It's got the epic journeys of the Pat Metheny Group and the fiery improvisational exchanges of his more recent jazz sessions. It's also a stretch beyond those horizons into textures and atmospheres not often heard in jazz." Hear the All Things Considered piece here.

Rachael & Vilray are guests on the latest episode of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The duo spoke with Fresh Air producer Sam Briger and performed several songs from their self-titled debut album. "I'm glad Sam introduced me to their music," host Terry Gross says in her introduction, "and I think you'll enjoy it too." You can hear the session here.

Jeff Parker's new album, Suite for Max Brown, is "a demonstration of how jazz mixes it up with other musics these days," says NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross music critic Kevin Whitehead. "Parker invokes his days as a crate-diving club DJ, a job where you can juxtapose beats from all over as long as they serve or creatively stem the flow." You can hear the review here.
 

Chris Thile and Gaby Moreno helped celebrate Dolly Parton's recent birthday with a performance of her song "Blue Smoke" for a special "Encores and Extras Compilation" episode of Live From Here last weekend. You can watch their performance of the song, as well as Thile's solo performance of "Little Sparrow," here. (Thile performed on Parton's 2001 album, Little Sparrow.) Chris Thile has several US solo concert dates in the weeks ahead, and Live From Here returns live from The Town Hall in New York City on February 8. 

Vagabon has announced a headlining spring tour of North America. The tour begins at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on March 31 and continues through May 17, culminating with a concert at the Constellation Room in Santa Ana, California. Vagabon stopped by WFUV in NYC to perform two songs from her self-titled new album, "Every Woman" and "In a Bind," for FUV Live, which you can watch here.

Yola recently stopped by Minnesota Public Radio's The Current to perform three songs from her multiple Grammy-nominated album, Walk Through Fire—the title track, "Ride Out in the Country," and "Shady Grove"—and talk with host Bill DeVille about her life and music. You can watch it here. And tune in to see her on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tonight.