Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, performed by the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus led by Gabriel Crouch, will be released on September 25 on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records. A video for “Sanctus/Benedictus” from the Mass, made by Deborah Johnson / CandyStations, can be seen here. Snider’s Mass, with a libretto by poet/writer Nathaniel Bellows, is a celebration of, and an elegy for, the natural world—animals, plants, insects, the planet itself—an appeal for greater awareness, urgency, and action.

Lianne La Havas has released a new video for the song “Can’t Fight” from her forthcoming self-titled album. Created in collaboration between La Havas and director Kevin Morosky, the video documents her cultural roots, influences, memories of love and loss, and daily passions, taking the viewer on a visual journey through her beloved South London. La Havas says, “I’ve finally made a video for ‘Can’t Fight’ navigating the social distancing guidelines, and had a lot of fun doing so. Enjoy.”

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi performed "At the Purchaser's Option," the opening track to Giddens' 2017 album, Freedom Highway, from home in Ireland for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's online series Play at Home today. You can watch it here.

David Byrne helped kick off the Aspen Ideas Festival's 2020 online edition in a conversation with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker on Sunday. The two discussed the role of the artist in difficult social times such as this. "Music can unite people," Byrne says. "It can make people feel that they belong, that they’re not alone." You can watch their conversation here. Also on the festival's opening day were conversations with Anthony Fauci and Stacey Abrams.

The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade—who reunite for the upcoming album RoundAgain, met up for a conversation about the project, their first recording together since 1994’s MoodSwing. They shared stories from their long history together while at the Falcon in upstate New York for a performance last fall. You can watch the conversation here, along with previously released performances of two RoundAgain tracks from the concert.

Rhiannon Giddens has released a video of her performing a new song she's written, "Build a House," featuring Yo-Yo Ma on cello, in honor of Juneteenth. "This song came knocking about a week ago and I had to open the door and let it in," Giddens says. "What can I say about what’s been happening, what has happened, and what is continuing to happen, in this country, in the world? There’s too many words and none, all at once. So I let the music speak, as usual. What a thing to mark this 155th anniversary of Juneteenth with that beautiful soul Yo-Yo Ma. Honored to have it out in the world." Watch it here.

Rhiannon Giddens led a Live With Carnegie Hall session with Francesco Turrisi in recognition of Juneteenth, examining the music and history of minstrelsy, the most popular form of entertainment in America during the 1800s, and its influence in the creation of the American cultural identity. They look at the global context of minstrelsy through the journeys of the banjo and the tambourine and examine what there is to reproach versus celebrate in the birth of American music. You can watch it here.

In honor of Live From Here, the public radio show hosted by Chris Thile in its current and previous iterations from 2016 till last week, we offer our thanks to everyone there who made the show such a joy for its listeners and viewers, and for providing a unique showcase for so many artists. In celebration, we have assembled some of our favorite performances from the show by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, including Thile, Punch Brothers, Rachael Price, Rachael & Vilray, Gaby Moreno, Vagabon, Gabriel Kahane, Lake Street Dive, The Staves, Dan Auerbach, Robert Finley, Randy Newman, Brad Mehldau, and Nickel Creek. You can watch them here.

Randy Newman was the musical guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night. He gave a performance from home of "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)," a song from his 1974 album, Good Old Boys. You can watch it here. "Maybe you’re cheatin' / Maybe you’re lyin' / Maybe you have lost your mind / Maybe you only think about yourself," the lyrics go. "Too late to run, too late to hide now / The time has come for us to say goodbye now / Mr. President, have pity on the working man."

While sheltering at home with his family during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, pianist and composer Brad Mehldau wrote twelve new songs about what he was experiencing; he was able to record them safely in a studio, together with interpretations of three tunes that mean a great deal to him personally. The resulting album, Suite: April 2020, is available now as a limited-edition deluxe 180-gram vinyl LP. One thousand numbered and signed copies are available for $100 exclusively from the Nonesuch Store, Bandcamp, and Discogs; a minimum of $90 from each sale will be donated to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund (after distribution fees). Suite: April 2020 is also available digitally today, with CD and standard vinyl editions due September 18; a portion of their sales also will benefit JFA’s Fund. A video for the album track “remembering before all this,” with an introduction by Mehldau, is available here.

Kronos Quartet has released a short film edited by Evan Neff scored to its performance of an excerpt of Peace Be Till, which composer Zachary Watkins wrote for the group in 2018. In the piece, Dr. Clarence B. Jones, the former personal counsel, speechwriter, and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., reads King's defense of nonviolent direct action in his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail, which Jones calls "the symphony of social justice." In 1963, Jones had smuggled King's words from the Birmingham, Alabama, jail cell in which he was being held for his participation in a peaceful demonstration.

The cast of Dave Malloy's Octet reunited as their characters for a "Friends of Saul" Zoom meeting to perform "The Forest" from the musical in a new video from the Signature Theatre. You can watch the performance from Adam Bashian, Alex Gibson, JD Mollison, Justin Gregory Lopez, Kim Blanck, Kuhoo Verma, and Margo Seibert in the video, edited by Lindsey Augusta Mercer, here.