Wilco has completed work on their forthcoming album, due out June 30 on Nonesuch Records, and, after much anticipation, it now comes complete with a title: Wilco (the album). "There’s a little something for everyone on the group’s new disc," says Rolling Stone. Wilco's performance at the New Orleans JazzFest last weekend was their last US gig till June, and, says Rolling Stone, "The band presented its friendliest, most rootsy face ... Throughout, the band’s movement from a whisper to a screech happened organically." "The fresh air favors Wilco," reports the Times-Picayune. "Jeff Tweedy and company delivered thrilling, nuanced sets ... [and] stamped an exclamation point on ... the day."

John Adams has been honored with the 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors. "This award represents the greatest honor our nation bestows in opera, and recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States and have become cultural treasures of the nation," says the NEA. Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, will receive its Canadian premiere with the Vancouver Opera next March for the Cultural Olympiad 2010. Also included in the Olympic Games' arts celebration are performances by Kronos Quartet and by Laurie Anderson.

Allen Toussaint is back home in New Orleans and, as one would expect from the artist featured on the official JazzFest poster, playing a number of festival events, following the release of his new album, The Bright Mississippi. "You’re going to love this," says the Buffalo News of the new album in its four-star review. "Not to be missed." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette gives the album an A, exclaiming, "Emotional, toetapping and richly spacious, this is one very cool album." Blurt says, "New Orleans could hardly ask for a better tribute."

Stephen Sondheim, in London recently for Trevor Nunn's revival of A Little Night Music, sat down for a revealing interview with The Times, which calls him "a one-off all right, a Colossus bestriding the second half of the 20th century." The composer was celebrated last night at a Washington, DC, gala concert, starring Bernadette Peters and Michael Cerveris, to benefit the Signature Theatre and inaugurate its Sondheim Award.

Nonesuch Records will release the self-titled label debut from singer-songwriter Christina Courtin on June 23. The New York Times says Courtin’s voice “feels uniquely otherworldly, as if it couldn’t possibly be entirely human born.” The album is co-produced by Courtin, a graduate of The Juilliard School; jazz bassist Greg Cohen; and her frequent band mate singer/guitarist Ryan Scott. Cohen and Scott also contribute bass and guitar to the recording. Several  acclaimed musicians join them, including keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Jim Keltner, pedal-steel player Greg Leisz, Punch Brothers violinist Gabe Witcher, and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion.

The Black Keys play Midwest fests after being "one of the most impressive sets of the weekend" (JamBase) at Coachella ... Alarm Will Sound, St. Lawrence String Quartet play Adams ... David Byrne plays the Iberian peninsula ... Toumani Diabaté's in Vermont ... Richard Goode plays Bach in Albuquerque ... Emmylou Harris, Carolina Chocolate Drops meet up at MerleFest ... Kronos leads Riley's In C at Carnegie ... k.d. lang's in Vermont too ... The Low Anthem plays a hometown set, and in Vermont ... Joshua Redman takes Trio to Tokyo ... eighth blackbird plays Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning piece in LA ... Allen Toussaint heads home to play New Orleans ... Dawn Upshaw sings Golijov in St. Paul ... Sara Watkins plays Philly and DC ... Wilco jam at New Orleans JazzFest ... and more ...

Terry Riley's groundbreaking Minimalist masterwork In C turns a remarkable 45 years young this year. To celebrate, Kronos Quartet has gathered about 60 performers, many of whom participated in the piece's premiere in San Francisco in 1964, to join them and the composer to perform the work in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium for the first time. Playbill calls the piece "the minimalist musical be-in that altered the course of music history." New York magazine says, "Carnegie Hall’s extravaganza should yield a rich, polychrome stew of sound."

The Low Anthem joins an all–Rhode Islander line-up for a hometown gig at Providence's Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel tonight, with touring partner Elvis Perkins in Dearland and Deer Tick. The Providence Journal writes that all three bands "have all spent significant time in the Ocean State, and they’re all riding a wave of critical and professional success. Of the three, The Low Anthem may have the most to brag about," after being "a hit at last month’s SXSW conference" and signing to Nonesuch. MOJO has booked the band for a special set in London and writes, "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, with its meld of lush Americana and blues stompers, is already set to be one of the key new releases of 2009."

The Times (UK) gives four stars to Allen Toussaint's recent Nonesuch solo debut, The Bright Mississippi, which the paper calls "a relaxed, confident homage" to New Orleans jazz, concluding that "albums such as this serve to remind us how much pop across the Western world owes to the hurricane-menaced old place." The New York Observer calls it "immaculate," with Toussaint and his band "calm, swampy, smoky, rakish and velveteen: Clarinetist Don Byron sounds like bourbon, and Marc Ribot’s guitar on 'West End Blues' will make anyone who loves his playing on Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs weep with happiness."

Toumani, ever the griot, embraces its educational component with a number of pre- and post-performance demonstrations and Q&As at university concerts, like tonight's at UMass, Amherst. He and his Symmetric Orchestra performed in New York City last weekend, which the Village Voice describes as "a decidedly extroverted, celebratory affair," such that midway in, "the band and crowd were at a full lather, ebullient and ecstatic." Time Out New York says: "By the end of the main set, the stage was flooded with audience members, dancing feverishly, arms and legs flailing. The show built to a roar; the crowd jumped to its feet, passionately cheering."

The Bright Mississippi, Allen Toussaint's Nonesuch solo debut, hit stores yesterday. Time Out New York says that Toussaint's "natural balance between silken refinement and syncopated pizzazz is matched by the sass and subtlety of his sidemen," exemplified on the closing duet with guitarist Marc Ribot, "swoonworthy enough in its boudoir charms to spark a new baby boom." Jazzwise gives the album four stars, describing the pianist as "soused in that full, sumptuous verve and affection that is New Orleans at its good times rolling best." Pop Dose calls it "a gorgeous record to listen to ... We get why Allen Toussaint is a cultural treasure and a purely American phenomenon."

Sara Watkins returns to New York City, the site of her recent appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, this time to play the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side. Time Out New York's "The Volume" blog says you "know you’re in good hands" right from the start of Sara's recently released Nonesuch debut, to its closer: "its simplicity hurts, in a good way." Sara and all the musicians who make guest turns on the album, including its producer John Paul Jones, are to be credited as well: "Their mellow, sweet sound shimmers like the sun on dust motes."