The Wall Street Journal sees Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi as an example of "cause for optimism" in music this year. The Sunday Times places Amadou & Mariam's Dimanche à Bamako among the best pop/rock music of the '00s. Time Out includes Oumou Sangare's Seya and Christina Courtin's debut among the year's best albums and NYC performances by Toumani Diabaté and Wilco among the year's best shows. In "a phenomenal decade for world music," says WNYC, Ali Farka Touré's Savane is among the decade's best, with Youssou N'Dour's Egypt at No. 1.

The Low Anthem's Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, has been named to the No. 4 spot on Paste's 25 Best Albums of 2009, with label mates Wilco on the list at No. 21. The album is "gorgeous chamber folk," says Paste. "[T]hese 12 songs are exquisite." Baeble names the video for "Charlie Darwin" the year's best. In a year that's brought such acclaim, the band's Ben Knox Miller reflects on all that's happened and looks forward to what's ahead.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops' Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, is due out this coming February, and the trio is set to hit the road just after the New Year. Now, the band offers up a video preview of the new album, with live performances, interviews with the band, and a few words from the album's producer, Joe Henry. You'll find the video at nonesuch.com/media.

Pat Metheny Radio offered fans an exclusive first listen to a track from Orchestrion, Pat Metheny's forthcoming Nonesuch release, late last week. Starting today, you can catch another tune off the album, "Spirit of the Air," on the station at patmetheny.com. The album is due out on CD January 26; the vinyl release is now slated for early March. You can pre-order the album with a limited-edition 9" x 12" print signed by Pat only at nonesuch.com.

When President Barack Obama was in Oslo last week to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he took time to meet Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. The couple went on to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo Friday night. "We were proud to represent Africa during the Nobel Peace Prize celebrations," they say, "and it was a great honor to have met President Barack Obama." The Philadelphia Inquirer names the couple's "deliriously ebullient" Welcome to Mali among the year's best; TIME names the album opener, "Sabali," one of the year's best songs.

The Boston Herald's list of the Top Ten classical albums of the year is out, and four of the ten are from Nonesuch: Kronos Quartet's Floodplain, John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony, Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia, and Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica's recording of Mozart's Complete Violin Concertos. The Herald had named The Low Anthem's Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and Wilco's Wilco (the album) among the year's best in pop/rock.

John Adams led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a performance of El Niño at Carnegie Hall Sunday. The New York Times finds Adams's Nativity Oratorio to be "best suited to the business of telling the Nativity story" of the works typically heard during Advent and credits the conductor with drawing "a solid, passionate performance from the orchestra." Playbill spoke with Adams and New York City Ballet's Peter Martins about Martins's new piece set to Naive and Sentimental Music, which recently premiered at Lincoln Center.

As announced earlier this month, Nonesuch is set to release the soundtrack from the critically acclaimed documentary about Youssou N’Dour, I Bring What I Love, in January 2010. The album will now be available on January 26, rather than on January 12, as previously announced. The film will be out on DVD via Oscilloscope sometime in early 2010.

David Byrne and Fatboy Slim have paired up for Here Lies Love, a 22-track song cycle about the life of former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos and her childhood servant, Estrella Cumpas. In addition to Byrne and Fatboy Slim, the album, due February 23 [now April 6] on Todomundo / Nonesuch Records, features performances by Santigold, Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine), Sia, Steve Earle, St. Vincent, Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Sharon Jones, Nicole Atkins, and many others.

The revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music opened last night at the Walter Kerr Theatre, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury; Nonesuch Records / PS Classics will record the cast album in January. New York calls the revival a "stunning, twilit, devastatingly good new production ... beautiful." Sondheim and Lansbury talk to the magazine about this and their previous work together. NPR's Weekend Edition looks at a different sort of relationship with ties to the play. USA Today praises both Lansbury and Sondheim's score for their "blend of wit and poignancy."

Randy Newman has announced that he will tour Europe in April and May 2010 to support the release of his acclaimed, best-selling album Harps and Angels, his first album of new material in nine years and the first record of his 40-year career ever to chart in the UK. The tour includes dates in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, UK, and Holland, and follows a February performance at UCLA in February.

The Associated Press has announced its Top Ten list of the best albums of 2009, and on it are Wilco's Wilco (the album) at No. 3 and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi at No. 9. Included as Honorable Mention is Dan Auerbach's solo debut, Keep It Hid, and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali is "also one of the year's best."