Among the nearly 10,000 foreign visitors who'll head to Glasgow this frigid January for the Celtic Connections festival will be two Nonesuch artists: k.d. lang and Punch Brothers—whom Scotland's Sunday Herald has dubbed "hot young Americana dudes"—each performing a set at what the paper says is "the best party in the world."

Filmmaker/provocateur John Waters has famously depicted his hometown of Baltimore on the big screen throughout his career. It's perhaps no wonder then that he admits to being a big fan of the Baltimore-based show The Wire. He tells the Toronto Star: "I'm addicted to The Wire on HBO. Not only is it set in Baltimore, but it's like reading a great novel."

The Savannah Music Festival has announced its 2008 schedule, and Audra McDonald will be among the performers at this, Georgia's largest musical arts festival. McDonald will perform on March 28 as part of the Divine Divas series. The festival will run from March 20 through April 5, 2008.

The Los Angeles Times has revealed its pop music critics' lists of their favorites for the year. On staff writer Dan Heckman's list for the best in jazz is Joshua Redman's Back East and for the best in world music, Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). Heckman calls Redman "one of the rare under-40 musicians who are making waves" and says the new album showcases "his ability to star in the difficult saxophone-bass-drums instrumental format." And with Youssou's new record, "The irresistible appeal of N'Dour's emotion-laden voice and irresistibly body-moving music has reached well beyond the arena of African music"

Time Out New York, though reluctant to use the word "masterpiece" for fear of contributing to its overuse, says Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, earning a perfect six stars, is worthy of the word: "[T]he writer-director’s attempt to map the moment when bootstrap mentality curdles into cutthroat corporate culture earns the title. There hasn’t been a more breathtaking, damning portrait of frontier paranoia since [Robert Altman's] McCabe & Mrs. Miller."

There Will Be Blood has been named one of the year's best films by the American Film Institute. The creative team behind the film will receive the AFI Award in Los Angeles on January 11.

CBS Sunday Morning's film critic David Edelstein counts Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood as "the jewel" among holiday releases. Edelstein calls the film "a psychodrama with the epic scale of an Old Testament parable," and says Daniel Day-Lewis, in the lead role, "looms as large as the derricks that dominate the unruly landscape." Even the film's already-controversial final scene is, in Edelstein's opinion, "brilliant," all part of the "mad American classic" Anderson has created.

NPR's music programs and reviewers are turning in their lists for the Best of 2007, and a number of Nonesuch artists are among the top choices from public radio. Wilco's Sky Blue Sky tops World Cafe's list of the best albums of the year. All Things Considered's Banning Eyre has three Nonesuch albums among his Top Ten of 2007: Caetano Veloso's Cê, Sérgio and Odair Assad's Jardim Abandonado, and Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). On the list for "Top Ten Jazz Jewels of 2007" from WDUQ is Metheny/Mehldau Quartet. And Wilco's "Hate It Here," from Sky Blue Sky, is among the best songs of the year, per KUT.

In the Nonesuch Journal's final episode from Stephen Sondheim's discussion of Sweeney Todd, the composer expresses a preference for singing actors (over acting singers) and has high praise for all of the actors in the film, beginning with Johnny Depp's "extraordinary" performance in the title role.

In its review of the new big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Rolling Stone calls the film "a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling ... This Sweeney is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score." The review exclaims that the "brilliantly conceived and executed film moves from one highlight to another."

Featured on today's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, is Felicia "Snoop" Pearson from HBO's The Wire. She's written a new memoir, Grace After Midnight, about overcoming an incredible set of odds and turning her life around. Publisher's Weekly has called hers "a powerful story of someone trying to find her way in a dark world ... Pearson's narrative is spare, even poetic, rendering traumatic moments all the more powerful."

"Watershed highlights what lang does best," says MOJO magazine of k.d. lang's upcoming Nonesuch release: "fulsome, ballads sung with precision-timing, intelligence, and a humorous twist." The new record, writes MOJO's Lucy O'Brien, is "reflective and wistful." In keeping with that tone, Watershed "shows lang revisiting the wry country style of her early work  ... layering her laconic delivery with lush, seductive harmonies."