Stephen Sondheim: Finishing the Hat, the composer's first-ever collection of his lyrics, is out now in the UK and is due out in the US next week. The collection includes the lyrics for all of his musicals from 1954 to 1981 along with personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes photos. Variety declares London "smitten with Sondheim." Financial Times says "Sondheim has brought unprecedented depth to musicals"; one sees a Sondheim show "for the exhilaration of seeing a popular art form stretched to its limits." Sondheim's Evening Primrose will receive a one-night-only reading next week, the night before the original TV production is out on DVD. Bernadette Peters will receive the the Signature Theatre's 2011 Sondheim Award.

Laurie Anderson heads to California for a weeklong tour that includes performances of Delusion in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and of Transitory Life at Yoshi's in San Francisco. "I'm trying to represent what I think of as mental drift," Anderson says of Delusion in the Los Angeles Times, "just the way your mind can move from thing to thing." The Santa Barbara Independent recognizes the piece as the latest in "her untouchable performance-art career."

Carolina Chocolate Drops follow a Nor'easter to the Northeast ... Laurie Anderson does Delusion in upstate NY ... Rhys Chatham returns to NYC's The Kitchen ... Wanda Jackson hits Texas ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica tour Germany ... Magnetic Fields doc screens at London Film Fest ... Natalie Merchant continues orchestra tour ... Pat Metheny continues Orchestrion tour ... Punch Brothers join T Bone Burnett in Boston ... Joshua Redman Trio plays DC ... and more ...

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, with Folds performing "Saskia Hamilton," off their album Lonely Avenue. Watch the episode here. The two will be in Washington, DC, next week for a PEN/Faulkner event. Following Folds own US tour, he returns to DC for a National Geographic Live! event in December featuring his photos, which he discusses on National Geographic Weekend, now online.

Punch Brothers perform at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium tonight; the San Francisco Chronicle says the band performs "with a sense of adventure that's hard to resist." This closes out the band's run of shows in California that included Wednesday's show at LA's El Rey Theater with Jon Brion, at which, says the Los Angeles Times, Punch Brothers "flexed the kind of instrumental chops that even a non-player can admire." They head next to the East Coast to join T Bone Burnett's Speaking Clock Revue benefit for music and arts education programming in public schools.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's week of events in New York City culminates with an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight. That follows a free event at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square—conversation, performance, and signing of their new album, Lonely Avenue—that leads Daily Candy's Weekend Guide of things to do in the city. You can listen to Folds and Hornby's guest spot on WNYC's Soundcheck from yesterday here.

Rhys Chatham, whose Lincoln Center Out of Doors performance of A Crimson Grail was released last month on Nonesuch, returns to New York and to the cutting-edge cultural space he once curated: The Kitchen. Chatham and artist Angie Eng perform the a multimedia piece, Echodes, there Friday and Saturday. Time Out New York recommends it as Top Live Show and calls A Crimson Grail "gorgeous." Hear selections from A Crimson Grail in a short film at nonesuch.com/media.

Wanda Jackson is in Texas this weekend to play The Continental Clubs of Austin and Houston. Austin's American Statesman says: "It's an exciting time to be Wanda Jackson." The Boston Globe says of her recent Boston-area show: "Jackson’s signature growl was in glorious form. Her voice still has its distinct, syrupy twang, and she was vibrant as ever, weaving recollections, wisecracks, and in-the-moment observations in among the music."

Sara Watkins will be on the big screen as a guest on A Prairie Home Companion as the show is broadcast live in movie theaters across North America Thursday, October 21. A high-definition video feed of a special Thursday night performance from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, will be sent via satellite to movie theaters live at 7 PM CT. Also on the show will be Old Crow Medicine Show, Joe Ely, and Andra Suchy.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby will appear today on WNYC's Soundcheck. The pair will discuss their songwriting collaboration on their new release, Lonely Avenue, and Folds will perform live. Tune in at 2 PM ET on 93.9 FM or listen online at wnyc.org. The pair performed last night as part of SPIN magazine's Liner Notes series at a benefit for the Housing Works AIDS Charity in New York City. Folds and Hornby continue their New York appearances with a performance on Thursday evening at Barnes & Noble's Union Square location for the series Upstairs at the Square.

There's just one more day to submit your remix of Philip Selway's "Beyond Reason," off his solo debut album, Familial. Final submissions are due at Indaba Music by 5 PM EDT on Thursday. Once all the submissions are in, it's time to start voting. From October 14 to 28, fans and a panel of judges, including Selway, will review the submissions. Indaba will announce the jury’s choices of Grand Prize Winner and two Runners-Up on November 11, as well as the public’s choice of 15 Honorable Mentions.

Kronos Quartet returns to the Bay Area to perform at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium tonight, following two sold-out shows at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge. The concert marks the Opening Night of the Stanford Lively Arts series. On the program, titled Awakening: A Meditation on 9/11, Kronos reflects on that fateful day in works from a dozen countries, joined on stage by the Cantabile Youth Singers.