T Bone Burnett, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore all convene in San Francisco for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest ... The Black Keys head south to North Carolina and South Carolina ... Isabel Bayrakdarian begins her American tour in San Francisco ... David Byrne's Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour continues in California ... Ry Cooder makes his second of two rare live performances in San Francisco ... Randy Newman performs live on Late Late Show ... Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer perform music from their new album in Oregon ... Dawn Upshaw talks with Alex Ross at this weekend's New Yorker Festival ... and more ...

Audra McDonald and Dawn Upshaw will take the stage at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles tonight for the Opening Night Gala of the Los Angeles Philarmonic's 2008–09 season, the orchestra's last with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at its helm. Audra will sing Sondheim's "There Won't Be Trumpets" and Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn's "10,432 Sheep"; Dawn will perform songs from John Adams's Nixon in China and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. The eclectic program also includes selections from Stravinsky's The Firebird.

David Simon, executive producer, writer, and creator of HBO's The Wire, will present a lecture at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, this afternoon at 4:10 PM in the school's chapel. The lecture, titled "The Audacity of Despair," is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Hamilton College's Dean of Faculty and hosted by the school's American Studies program. Simon's most recent work for HBO, the mini-series Generation Kill, tells the story of an embedded reporter in Iraq during the initial US invasion of Baghdad in 2003.

With just over four weeks left until election day in the United States, November 4, a number of Nonesuch Records artists will be participating in some very special campaign events. This Monday, k.d. lang will perform at an intimate, in-home fund-raising concert for Obama in New York City with Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Joseph Biden, and renowned chef Alice Waters. The following evening in New York, composer Ricky Ian Gordon and Tony Award–winning actress Victoria Clark perform at a stellar Obama/Biden fund-raiser at the home of television producer Tom Fontana. On October 10, Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile perform works by Bach as well as their own works at an Obama benefit concert at New York's Poisson Rouge.

The Glass Box, the 10-CD Nonesuch retrospective covering 40 years of the works of Philip Glass, hits stores today, just one day after the New York City Opera announced that it has commissioned the composer to create a new opera on the life of another iconic American figure, Walt Disney. The new work for City Opera will be Glass's 24th opera and will honor his 75th birthday when it premieres in 2012–2013. In the nearer future, City Opera has scheduled Glass's Einstein on the Beach for 2009–2010; it will be the company's first production in its newly refurbished home at Lincoln Center.

Ry Cooder, fresh off his recent performance at the San Jose Mariachi Festival, makes two more rare live appearance this Thursday and Friday when he reconnects with former bandmates Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner for two concerts at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to benefit the Richard deLone Special Housing Fund. The San Jose Mercury News talks with Ry about this atypically packed performance schedule, part of "an explosion of productivity" that includes the recent release of his I, Flathead and the new Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall album.

Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian's Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, was released last week; she launches her North American tour of songs from the album at the end of the week in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle finds Bayrakdarian's "gorgeous, dark-hued tone and communicative power" and the "tender clarity and ripe urgency" of her singing to be well suited to these songs. The Ottawa Citizen gives the album four-and-a-half stars, exclaiming: "Bayrakdarian's voice is a marvel. Songs for children, songs of nature, of love, of humour, of yearning, she finds exactly the right mode of expression for each one. You have to wonder if there's another singer anywhere in the world who could do them equal justice."

Randy Newman's Harps and Angels tour stop at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, on Friday night. The Philadelphia Inquirer previewed the set with a look at the man he places "among the most perversely funny of songwriter-observers who ever hit the charts." Randy had stopped in Bethesda, Maryland, earlier in the week for what the Washington Post calls "jaw-dropping concert" and "a rollicking ride through Randy Newman's psyche." Glide magazine calls Harps and Angels "34 minutes of sharp-witted commentary by one of America’s most original lyricists."

Kronos Quartet joined legendary Azerbaijani singer Alim Qasimov and his ensemble at London's Barbican this past Friday for the center's annual Ramadan Nights celebration of Sufi music. The Guardian says the pairing produced an "outstanding" concert from the "intriguing collaboration" between Qasimov, "certainly one of the most thrilling, unashamedly emotional performers on the planet," and the Quartet, which showed "daring" and "range with a virtuoso set."

Glenn Kotche plays his own pieces and works by Steve Reich's at the Bang on a Can Marathon at the University of Illinois ... both of John Adams's Two Fanfares for Orchestra are performed—one in Pittsburgh, one in Orlando ... The Black Keys take Texas, from Dallas to Austin City Limits ... David Byrne also plays Austin City Limits, and Albuquerque ... Ry Cooder backs East L.A. singer Ersi Arvizu with her All Star Big Band at the San Jose Mariachi Festival ... Shawn Colvin plays Clayton, North Carolina ... Bill Frisell supports the environment in a Washington State benefit concert ... Emmylou Harris concludes her European tour ... Kronos Quartet plays with Alim Qasimov at the Barbican's Ramadan Nights ... Randy Newman tours the East Coast ... Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Rosas dance company performs her Steve Reich Evening ... Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer play California ... and more ...

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer's tour in support of their new, debut duo album continues in California this weekend, including a stop in San Diego on Sunday. The San Diego Union-Tribune says of Thile: "I can't think of any other mandolinist who is more talented or consistently innovative ... [He] is a master of his instrument who rarely fails to inspire or elevate his listeners." It goes on to praise the new album as "an all-instrumental gem that never sacrifices nuance and musicality for virtuosity, even when the two perform at a seemingly superhuman tempo ... Their fusion of classical and bluegrass, the earthy and the sophisticated, is so seamless and evolved that it seems unlikely anyone will catch up soon."