Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love premieres at BAM's Muslim Voices festival in June. "He lives so successfully by his convictions, and shows us a very different Islam than what we see in the media," the film's director tells New York. "And his voice is extraordinary. If you watch his band Super Etoile perform, you’ll follow them to the edge of the earth." Robert Cole, who is retiring from Cal Performances after 20-plus years at its helm, says: "Of the artists we've had relationships with, certainly Youssou N'Dour is one of the greatest." At a recent UN-led World Malaria Day event, N'Dour and Malaria No More launched a campaign to encourage the use of mosquito nets in Senegal and help prevent the spread of the disease.

Allen Toussaint was in Las Vegas this past weekend performing at the city's free Jazz in the Park series and performs a week's residency at New York's Village Vanguard next week, joined by most of the musicians off his recently released solo Nonesuch debut, The Bright Mississippi. "Allen Toussaint's new album couldn't sound more like New Orleans," says the Boston Globe. The pianist "revisits jazz classics ... and takes them for a stroll through Preservation Hall, imbuing his own funky brand of pop-song charisma." Throughout, "Toussaint's musical soul guides all, making the classics sound like his own." The St. Petersburg Times gives it an A; the Lexington Herald Leader calls it "sublime."

John Adams is in Los Angeles this week to conduct a series of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. On tap are two performances, the orchestra's first, of Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, with its original cast of singers, this Friday and Sunday, plus a concert Tuesday, pairing his Son of Chamber Symphony with works by two young composer/performers. The LAist chooses the performances for its Classical Pick of the Week.

Stephen Sondheim is the subject of a profile in Time magazine, which suggests that there won't be another like him any time soon, "not because high-brow musical theater is dead, but because the old Sondheim keeps on being new." The article looks at new productions of the composer's works as well as new works from Sondheim, like Road Show, to explain his enduring power. Director Trevor Nunn compares Sondheim to Shakespeare. "As with Shakespeare," he tells Time, "there's heightened poetic expression in Sondheim, but when you dig into it, you find it's in touch with something real." Time concludes: "He occupies a place in the pantheon not of musical theater, but of theater itself."

Last Sunday, k.d. lang was featured among the performers celebrating and being celebrated as Women in the Arts at the Kennedy Center's 2009 Spring Gala. This past Sunday, k.d. contributed an article to The Guardian and Observer Guides to Performing. "My voice and the styles and genres I sing all express my appreciation for what I hear," k.d. writes. "I've learned very slowly and very experientially. I find something and I just listen and experience it and eventually it starts coming out of me ... There needn't be a distinction between your life and your music."

Björk, Dirty Projectors premiere new music at sold-out NY benefit ... Adams's work joins Beethoven's in Winnipeg Ballet piece ... Laurie Anderson brings Burning Leaves to Berlin ... Bill Frisell Trio continues at the Cotton Club in Tokyo ... Philip Glass talks art, Buddhism for benefit event ... Richard Goode plays Bach, Chopin in intimate NYC space ... Kronos plays German jazz fest, join Wu Man at the Barbican ... Brad Mehldau Trio continues sold-out residency at the Vanguard ... Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone play two weeks in Cleveland ... Punch Brothers play PA Renaissance Faire ... Allen Toussaint offers a free set in Vegas ... Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, oversee Carnegie Hall workshop concerts ... Sara Watkins makes way to Windy City ... and more ...

Allen Toussaint, fresh off the heels of his New Orleans JazzFest performances, is set to play a free outdoor performance in Las Vegas Saturday night. The New York Daily News writes of his solo Nonesuch debut, The Bright Mississippi: "It's a marvel on every level ... The feel for New Orleans music offered on the CD defies every garish cliché of the region, epitomizing instead a subtlety and dignity that have marked Toussaint's music from the start." All About Jazz calls it "a rich and multi-layered CD ... Toussaint, with producer Joe Henry, has crafted a sound that is modern yet traditional, jazzy yet funky, soulful yet pristine and completely elegant." The Ottawa Citizen gives it four stars, exclaiming: "It's a killer."

Wilco (the album) is due out June 30 on Nonesuch, and Billboard offers a hint of what's to come, stating that, "musically, Wilco (the album) offers a little bit of everything while making good on frontman Jeff Tweedy's stated goal to use 'the studio as another instrument.'" The article offers insight on each of the album's tracks, including its "majestic" closer and "a gorgeous duet" with Feist. Blurt magazine's review of the band's new concert DVD, Ashes of American Flags, compares it favorably to Scorsese's The Last Waltz, leading the reviewer to commit to Wilco as "the greatest American rock 'n' roll band."

The Brad Mehldau Trio returned to the Village Vanguard in New York's Greenwich Village this past Tuesday for the first in a five-night residency of a dozen sold-out sets. "[T]here was looseness in his first set on Tuesday night, along with variety and depth of feeling," says the New York Times. "Mr. Mehldau conveyed a spruce informality, mixing impulse with erudition." By set's end, "His sound, completely luminous, filled the room." The Chicago Tribune calls last Friday's Trio performance at that city's Symphony Center "delightful," exclaiming that Mehldau's "collaboration with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard reaffirmed one's belief in the enduring viability of the jazz trio."

Dawn Upshaw and pianist Gilbert Kalish performed at Boston's Jordan Hall on Sunday afternoon, in what the Boston Globe calls a "memorable" recital. "She is, indisputably, a great singer, with a voice that radiates power and unforced warmth," says the Globe. "But her secret weapon is a casual, unpretentious demeanor that lessens the distance between stage and audience. Listeners in her presence experience music not as the inaccessible product of a holy art but as a thing of open, approachable beauty." Later this month, Nonesuch will reissue, as MP3 albums, exclusively in the Nonesuch Store, five recordings of the Haydn piano sonatas Kalish made for the label between 1975 and 1980.

Coraline, the new musical featuring music by Stephin Merritt and based on the Neil Gaiman horror/children's book, opens in previews tonight at New York's MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel. Merritt spoke with the Village Voice for an extensive article about the play. "Since the earliest Magnetic Fields albums," says the Voice, "critics have drawn comparisons between Merritt's songwriting and that of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin ... So it seemed only a matter of time before he would imitate those idols and write for the stage."

Fresh off yesterday's release on Nonesuch of Richard Goode's recording of the complete Beethoven piano concertos and his performance last night at Carnegie Hall, Goode joins WNYC's Leonard Lopate for a performance on today's show. The Huffington Post exclaims that the album's release signals "a great day for classical music," asserting: "If you're in the mood to hear five of the greater piano concertos ever written ... then Richard Goode's your man. Oh, there are other pianists who have climbed this mountain, but of the living practitioners, Goode stands alone. He's given the bulk of his creative life to Beethoven. And it shows."