Brad Mehldau's Highway Rider is out now, with an exclusive bonus demo track included at the Nonesuch Store. Brad's official site, bradmehldau.com, has been relaunched with a new look and lots of new material. All About Jazz describes the new album, with "its almost perfect mix of form and freedom," as "the most fully realized original music the pianist has written to date ... Mehldau the composer has clearly arrived."

John Adams and the London Symphony Orchestra gave the UK premiere of his Doctor Atomic Symphony at Barbican Hall Sunday; they perform the European premiere of his City Noir Thursday. The Times (UK) gives Sunday's "extraordinarily compelling" performance four stars, exclaiming that, with Doctor Atomic Symphony, Adams "has created a truly explosive 25-minute piece in which the listener is rocked by a sense of the compacted moral and physical turbulence of the original opera." The Evening Standard gives it four stars as well, calling it "Adams at his heart-on-sleeve best."

Buena Vista Social Club's leading lady, Omara Portuondo performs an intimate concert for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. "Her performance here of two classic boleros was enough to transport us to another time and place," says NPR. "Achingly tender and direct, her Tiny Desk Concert reflects the passion for life she instills in every performance." Portuondo will perform with fellow Buena Vista stars in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles this summer.

Nonesuch artists converge on Chicago with The Low Anthem, Magnetic Fields, Mandy Patinkin, Punch Brothers all in town Sunday; Carolina Chocolate Drops, just there, play not far in Rockford ... John Adams is in focus at the Barbican ... Laurie Anderson talks astrophysics at NYC's Rubin Museum ... Vinicio Capossela launches US tour in NYC ... Christina Courtin closes Mike Doughty tour in California ... Bill Frisell Trio plays Boston ... Natalie Merchant judges poetry ... Pat Metheny continues Europe tour ... Joshua Redman is in LA ... Stephen Sondheim converses in Minneapolis ... Allen Toussaint, Blind Boys of Alabama play LA ... Sara Watkins performs in Paducah ...

There are just a few days left on The Low Anthem's tour with the Avett Brothers, after which the band will headline its own US tour, beginning in DC. "The Low Anthem isn't the first bunch of indie rockers to experiment with older string-band instruments and echoes of the songs of pre-1940 rural America," says the Washington Post. "But no one has done it better than this Rhode Island trio on its breakthrough album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin." The A.V. Club talks with front man Ben Knox Miller about the music.

John Adams returns to the Barbican in London this weekend for John Adams Focus. He introduces a screening of the film Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic, followed by the UK premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony, with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Next week, Adams will lead the LSO in the European premiere of City Noir, which, he writes in the Times, is "an imaginary film score, a musical study in cinematic colours and jazz-inflected energy."

Nonesuch Records and PS Classics will release the cast album of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music on April 6, 2010; the album is now available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store. Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury, and Alexander Hanson, the Trevor Nunn-production is the first revival of the show since its 1973 debut. The limited number of posters signed by the principals sold out as soon as they were made available this morning.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops were on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week, talking with Terry Gross and performing songs off Genuine Negro Jig. WNYC's Soundcheck names the album among its CD Picks of the Week. The Winnipeg Free Press gives it four stars, citing the "definite feel-good vibe." The Huffington Post reports from the Chicago show that the band "wrapped you in the sheer joy of this music played out loud."

Tune in to Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight to catch Allen Toussaint's performance with the New Orleans band Galactic. Toussaint's current US tour concludes in a special double bill with The Blind Boys of Alabama at Royce Hall in Los Angeles Saturday. He heads next to Europe for a number of shows, including the Allen Toussaint Festival with Don Byron in Bologna and a week's residency at the 35th anniversary International Jazz Festival Bern.

Emmylou Harris will join Dave Matthews and a host of guest performers at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on May 19 for the Music Saves Mountains  concert, presented by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The concert aims to raise awareness about mountaintop removal coal mining and its consequences for Appalachia. Also performing will be two of Harris's frequent touring partners, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller.

To coincide with the Nonesuch release of Natalie Merchant’s new album, Leave Your Sleep, on April 13, Merchant has announced a European tour in May—her first in eight years—including seven previously announced dates in the UK and now an additional seven dates in Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Paris. The limited-edition, signed print of Merchant available exclusively with Nonesuch Store orders has now been extended to an additional 500 prints. [Update: These, too, are now sold out.]

The San Francisco Symphony has announced its 2010-11 season, which will feature the return of composer John Adams as a featured composer. Adams will conduct the SFS in multiple performances of El Niño starring Dawn Upshaw this December. Also part of the focus on Adams: an SFS performance of Harmonielehre, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and an all-Adams chamber music concert featuring members of the orchestra.