The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's recipients of its annual fellowship, often referred to as the "Genius" grant. Dawn Upshaw was named a Fellow last year. Among this year's recipients are violinist Leila Josefowicz, who performs John Adams's Road Movies on the piece's 2004 Nonesuch recording; Walter Kitundu, Kronos Quartet's instrument builder in residence; writer Alex Ross, who will interview Upshaw at the upcoming New Yorker Festival; and SFJAZZ Collective saxophonist Miguel Zenón, who appears on the group's two Nonesuch albums.

Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile's self-titled debut duo album is due out tomorrow, and their month-long tour of the States in support of the record kicks off Thursday in Boulder, Colorado. New York Times critic Nate Chinen writes that, though "the mandolin ace" and "the accomplished bassist" first came together almost a decade ago as "prodigy with his mentor," the new collection "wisely presents them as equals," featuring "a busy dialogue between bluegrass and classical music, with blinding displays of dexterity as well as stretches of poplike lyricism."

Randy Newman's world tour got under way last week with stops at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Toronto's Convocation Hall on Saturday, and Boston's Symphony Hall on Sunday. Reviewing the Carnegie Hall show, New York magazine says that
Randy "sang about micro and macro American hypocrisy with more sharpness and poignancy than the combined works of Thomas Frank and Maureen Dowd." The Star-Ledger says "the droll raconteur provided more food for thought than a year's worth of media punditry, and he did it with soul." The Toronto Star calls Randy "a graduate cum laude of the master class of mid-1970s American musical poets" and says his latest album, Harps and Angels, "matches the caustic intelligence and musical virtuosity of his classic 1970s albums Sail Away and Good Old Boys." The Boston Globe calls Randy "pop's most incisive, sharp-witted satirist."

David Byrne showcases his collaborations with Brian Eno in Atlanta and Asheville ... Alarm Will Sound and San Francisco Ballet give two takes on Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony ... Laurie Anderson's Homeland heads to Princeton and Albany ... The Black Keys pay tribute to Woody Guthrie ... Bill Frisell plays a trio set on the East Coast and a solo set with Nels Cline out West ... Philip Glass plays to the poetry of Leonard Cohen in Milan ... Emmylou Harris sings to Scandinavia ... Randy Newman comes to Carnegie Hall ... Joshua Redman returns to Monterey Jazz ... Dawn Upshaw sings Bernstein in San Francisco ... and more ...

John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, receives its first recording with the Nonesuch release out Tuesday, followed by Hallelujah Junction, a two-CD Adams retrospective and memoirs of the same name. "Adams's sound-world is still expanding," writes The New Statesman. "In this, the composer's seventh decade, his musical fertility still springs anew." Pitchfork gives A Flowering Tree an 8.4, asserting: "There are few living American composers writing works as universal and relevant as John Adams—and that deserves everybody's attention." The Telegraph, in its review of the forthcoming book, declares: "A musician's memoir would probably not be your first choice for light reading, but make an exception for Hallelujah Junction."

Randy Newman's Harps and Angels tour began earlier this week in Peekskill, New York, and continues downstate with two performances in New York City: a free in-store set at the Apple Store in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood tonight at 7 PM and a concert at Carnegie Hall tomorrow. USA Today describes a track off the new album as "sublime even by Newman standards." The Richmond Times Dispatch gives the album four stars, declaring: "He’s still in a class of his own, and Harps and Angels is the kind of album that longtime fans really get to celebrate every few years ... He’s in great voice, and his songwriting strikes the right Newman mix of sweet/sour/scathing that makes Harps a record that could have landed just behind 1974’s classic Good Old Boys and seemed like a natural progression."

Sam Phillips continues her tour of the States with two stops in New York City this week: this evening, a free in-store performance and signing at Sound Fix in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and tomorrow night a concert at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. The Washington Post says her recent concert, broadcast from Annapolis, Maryland, for NPR's All Songs Considered, was "attuned to the key of imagination ... filled with soulful musings, dreamy love songs, and dispatches from 'the edge of the world.'"

Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, and T Bone Burnett are among the participants at the ninth-annual Americana Music Festival & Conference, getting under way today in Nashville. A highlight of the four-day affair is tomorrow night's Americana Honors & Awards ceremony at Ryman Auditorium, at which Thile, nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year, is scheduled to appear with Edgar Meyer, his partner on a debut duo album and DVD due out on Nonesuch next week. Burnett will participate in the keynote event of the festival's closing day, Saturday.

The Glass Box, Nonesuch Records' 10-CD collection of works by Philip Glass, is due out at the end of the month and is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. Yesterday on BBC Radio 3, In Tune featured a discussion with Glass plus three excerpts from works in the box, including the seminal Einstein on the Beach. Lincoln Center has announced that its 50th anniversary season, 2009–10, will include a production of Einstein on the Beach by the New York City Opera in its newly renovated New York State Theater.

Dawn Upshaw joins the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas tonight for the premiere of an all-Bernstein program that will make its way to Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala next week. On the program tonight at Davies Symphony Hall and continuing there Thursday and Friday nights are Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Scenes from A Quiet Place, Meditation No. 1 from Mass, Danzón from Fancy Free, and songs from West Side Story, On the Town, Songfest, and Trouble in Tahiti, some of which were featured on the 1996 Nonesuch release Leonard Bernstein's New York.

The kora—the 21-string West African harp—is the focus of tonight's episode of New Sounds on WNYC, New York public radio. Toumani Diabaté, whose solo kora record, The Mandé Variations, was released earlier this year, and who was recently described by the Boston Globe as "the uncontested master" of the instrument, will be among the featured artists on the show, as will Philip Glass, for his work with Gambian musician Foday Musa Suso.

Sam Phillips is on the road with songs from her latest release, Don't Do Anything, as well as past favorites. The BBC says Sam makes "smokey, sassy, sultry, smart-as-a-whip" music, and the new album is "an album to get deliriously lost within." All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen introduced last night's live NPR.org concert broadcast from the tour by calling her songs "miniature pop jewels." The Albany Times Union, reviewing the previous show, says Sam's vocals make "her probing, intelligent lyrics and her vibrant melodies all the more powerful." Previewing tonight's show, the Philadelphia Inquirer describes Sam's sound as "a sophisticated confluence of Kurt Weill, Tom Waits and late-period Marianne Faithfull, without any florid excesses."