Brad Mehldau kicks off a two-week, 12-city European tour in the new electric duo with drummer Mark Guiliana, Mehliana, in which Mehldau performs on Fender Rhodes and an arsenal of vintage synthesizers while Guiliana accompanies on drums and effects. The Mehliana tour begins with five concerts in France, followed by a set at Barbican Hall in London for the EFG London Jazz Festival and stops in Germany, Italy, Monaco, and Switzerland. You can listen to "Hungry Ghost," off the forthcoming Mehliana album, due in early 2014, here.

The Grammy Award–winning Carolina Chocolate Drops bid farewell to founding member Dom Flemons who is starting a solo career after a special December US tour to commemorate his time with the band. Led by co-founder Rhiannon Giddens, the band will tour throughout 2014 with Hubby Jenkins and two new musicians, cellist Malcolm Parson and mulit-instrumentalist Rowan Corbett, who will join the group in the New Year.

The soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis is out now on Nonesuch Records. Written and directed by Academy Award© winners Joel and Ethan Coen and produced by Scott Rudin and Joel and Ethan Coen, the film stars Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, and Justin Timberlake. Produced by T Bone Burnett, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen, with Marcus Mumford as its associate producer, the album features 12 new recordings created especially for the film and soundtrack. Also included is a never-before-released recording of Bob Dylan performing his song “Farewell,” which was originally recorded during the sessions for his album The Times They Are A-Changin' and is available exclusively on this soundtrack. 

Jeremy Denk, who has written an essay on Bach for the Guardian, continues his residency with the San Francisco Symphony ... Audra McDonald joins Louisville Orchestra ... Sam Amidon tours Spain ... Devendra Banhart kicks off Latin American tour ... Bombino tours France ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter conclude duo tour ... Richard Goode gives free concerts at Colgate ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell tour Canada ... Iron and Wine heads South ... Kronos Quartet tours Northeast ... Brad Mehldau concludes solo tour in Madrid ... Joshua Redman is in Boston & Philadelphia ... Steve Reich joins all-Reich concert in London ... Chris Thile plays sold-out London show ... Rokia Traoré tours UK ... and more ...

Devendra Banhart kicks off a three-week tour of Latin America featuring music from his Nonesuch debut album, Mala, with two shows at El Plaza Condesa in Mexico City, tonight (sold out) and Saturday. Banhart and the band—Noah Georgeson, Matthew Compton, Josiah Steinbrick, and Todd Dahlhoff, plus Rodrigo Amarante, who will join after this weekend’s shows—head next to four Brazilian cities, followed by shows in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. 

Joshua Redman and his Quartet kick off a cross-country tour of the United States with a performance at The Egg in Albany, New York, tonight, followed by stops in Boston, Philadelphia, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Urbana, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. "As accolades from jazz critic and the public continue to rain down on Redman, he doesn't stand still," says the Times Union, previewing tonight's tour opener. "What fans will see is one of the world's great musical minds at work, in a setting that is sure to have moments that surprise even Redman."

Congratulations to Audra McDonald, whom Musical America has named Musician of the Year, and to Instrumentalist of the Year Jeremy Denk. The Musical America Awards recognize artistic excellence and achievement in the arts and will be presented in a ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York City on December 17.

The Savannah Music Festival has announced the line-up for its 25th anniversary season, to be held March 20–April 5, 2014, and among the artists scheduled to perform are several familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Punch Brothers; Chris Thile, in a duo concert with fellow mandolinist Mike Marshall; and Fatoumata Diawara and Bombino sharing a double bill for two shows.

Rokia Traoré kicks off a six-date tour of the UK with a performance at the Brighton Corn Exchange tonight, followed by stops in Leeds, Edinburgh, Derry, and Manchester, before culminating in a show at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Traoré and her band then head to New York City to launch a two-week North American tour at Jazz at Lincoln Center for the White Light Festival. Songlines has just named Traoré's new album, Beautiful Africa, among the Best Albums of 2013.

The soundtrack to the forthcoming Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis is due out November 11 on Nonesuch Records. But there's no need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming in full all week as an NPR First Listen. "Among many other accomplishments, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen helped change the direction of contemporary music with the soundtrack to their 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?," writes NPR's Stephen Thompson. "As with O Brother, music is integral to Inside Llewyn Davis," he continues; the soundtrack functions "both as a stand-alone collection of frequently gorgeous music and as a companion piece to a movie in which many different strains of folk collide as part of a scene taking shape."

On the acclaimed Mermaid Avenue albums, Billy Bragg and Wilco put music to lyrics by folk legend Woody Guthrie for which he had not written music or made recordings. On Black Friday, November 29, 2013, Nonesuch Records will reissue the first two volumes on vinyl and release, for the first time on vinyl, a third volume comprising 17 previously unreleased recordings made during the original sessions, which was first released in the 2012 three-CD-plus-DVD set Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions. Each volume is pressed on 2-LP, 180-gram vinyl at Pallas MFG in Diepholz, Germany. The albums are available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell made their Austin City Limits duo debut, performing together for the first time on the ACL stage, when the duo's set aired on PBS on Saturday. You can watch the complete episode here. Harris and Crowell will be featured again on a special ACL show on November 23, featuring highlights from the Americana Music Association Honors and Awards, at which they took home the awards for Duo of the Year and Album of the Year for Old Yellow Moon. Their North American tour, with Richard Thompson, is in the Pacific Northwest and Canada this week.