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.

Nonesuch releases its fourth recording from pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan, The Call Within, on August 28, 2020. On the album, he performs ten original compositions, with Evan Marien on electric bass and Arthur Hnatek on drums. Produced by Hamasyan, The Call Within is a journey into his dreamlike inner world, taking inspiration from his interest in maps from different eras, poetry, Armenian folk stories, astrology, geometry, ancient Armenian design, rock carvings, and cinematography. Pre-order to download the album track “Levitation 21,” a video for which can be seen here; Nonesuch Store pre-orders also include an exclusive, limited-edition print.

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi performed an NPR Music Tiny Desk Home Concert from Dublin. The set includes four "old songs," as Giddens calls them—"'cause with these kinds of emotions, the old songs say it best." You can watch it here. "They're finding comfort in being together, making music together, thinking of their families in both Italy and the United States, and hoping to comfort us all with some down-home tunes," says NPR's Bob Boilen. "And with banjos, fiddles, a bodhrán, and that stunning voice, it sure worked for me!"

Lianne La Havas performed "Bittersweet," from her upcoming, self-titled album, on BBC Two's Later ... with Jools Holland from home on Friday. You can watch it here.

The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt performed a two-song set for The Andy Warhol Museum's Silver Studio Sessions series from home: "She Says Hello," from the band's new album, Quickies, and his take on The Walker Brothers tune "In My Room." You can watch it here.

I Still Play, an album of eleven new solo piano compositions written by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, is now available. The pieces were written in honor of the label's longtime President Bob Hurwitz on the occasion of his 2017 shift into the Chairman Emeritus role. This "all-star collection" (Financial Times) features works by John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, and Randy Newman, performed by Andres, Mehldau, Newman, and Jeremy Denk. A new video of Andres performing his own piece, "Wise Words," on which you can follow along in the score, is also available here.

Composer/pianist Timo Andres was due to make his Carnegie Hall recital debut on April 29. The program was meant to feature several pieces from the new album I Still Play, out this Friday, and more. When the concert was canceled due to COVID-19, Andres filmed himself performing each piece on the program from home, and released the concert on YouTube the night it was meant to have taken place. You can now watch it here. "The music has taken on new depth during [this] process," Andres writes. "I love it all even more now. Each of the I Still Play pieces is a little conversational gem, distilling an aspect of its author’s voice into a concentrated nugget."

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi performed songs from their album there is no Other at the very special venue of The Metropolitan Museum's Temple of Dendur in NYC last fall. The concert received its digital premiere via The Met last weekend and can now be seen here. "This performance is both a condemnation of 'othering' and a celebration of the spreading of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience," says The Met. The unique venue "provided a stunning context for Giddens' virtuosity and raw emotional musicality."

Lianne La Havas released the video for her single "Paper Thin," from her upcoming self-titled album, due July 17. She made the video herself while social-distancing at home in London. You can watch it here. "'Paper Thin,’ for me, is the song that started this whole thing going. It started as a distant melody in my head as I was falling asleep that I decided not to sleep on,” La Havas explains. “It was recorded as jam between friends and has stayed that way.”

Brad Mehldau's performance of his piece "L.A. Pastorale," from the upcoming album I Still Play, is out now, along with a video for the song featuring photographs from Los Angeles. The song is available to download now with pre-orders of the album, due May 22. You can watch the "L.A. Pastorale" video here. I Still Play is eleven new solo piano compositions by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, written in honor of the label’s longtime President Bob Hurwitz on the occasion of his 2017 shift into the Chairman Emeritus role.