Rhiannon Giddens was on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions to talk with host Michael Berkeley about and share music from Bach, Dvořák, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Stephen Sondheim, and more. You can hear their conversation and Giddens’ selections here.

Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, has released her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, out now. On the album, Tamko reinvents herself once again with the most playful and adventurous music of her career. Co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim), the album features twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany that channel dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” Tamko says. “It's completely euphoric.”

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society perform Dynamic Maximum Tension at The Jazz Gallery in NYC. Rhiannon Giddens brings her new album, You’re the One, to the Ryman in Nashville and Athenaeum in Chicago. The Black Keys headline Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville. Jeremy Denk joins Danish String Quartet at Wigmore Hall in London. Brad Mehldau performs new solo piano piece at Dublin's National Concert Hall. Chris Thile performs new song cycle with Louisville Orchestra. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway play Pickin’ in the Pines in Flagstaff. Vagabon is in Brussels and Berlin with Arlo Parks.

The Staves release “You Held It All,” their first new music since the release of their 2021 album, Good Woman, today. It is also the group’s first recording as the duo of Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, following their sister and bandmate Emily’s stepping back after the birth of her children. Produced by John Congleton in Los Angeles, “‘You Held It All’ is a song about understanding, and the knots we tie ourselves in when we don’t express our truth,” The Staves say, “and how much power and freedom there can be when we do.”

Natalie Merchant was on The Sound of Success to talk with host Nic Harcourt about her life and musical career, including her new album, Keep Your Courage, and the tour for it she resumes next week on the US West Coast. She shares what Brian Eno and Roxy Music meant to her in her youth (on 8-track!), the impact of David Byrne’s early music videos, her musical guilty pleasure, and much more.

Congratulations to Julia Bullock, who has won the Edison Klassiek Award in the Netherlands for Solo Vocalist for her debut solo album, Walking in the Dark, released late last year on Nonesuch. The awards ceremony will take place in Leusden, Netherlands, on October 9. Bullock won Breakout Artist of the Year in Germany’s Opus Klassik Awards in June.

The line-up for the 2024 Big Ears Festival—taking place in downtown Knoxville, TN, March 21–24—has been announced, including more than a dozen Nonesuch artists past, present, and future, in celebration of the label’s 60th anniversary in 2024: Sam Amidon, Laurie Anderson, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Tyondai Braxton, Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Halvorson, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Brad Mehldau, Ringdown (Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee), Davóne Tines, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, and Yasmin Williams.

Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, whose new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, is out this Friday, has shared one final taste of the album, a video for the Mariah Carey–inspired “Lexicon,” the most jubilant track on an album comprising the most playful and adventurous music of Tamko’s career. You can watch the video, directed by Kathleen Dycaico, here. 

Rachael & Vilray bring music from their latest album, I Love a Love Song!, released earlier this year on Nonesuch, to the US West Coast and Midwest this fall and winter, beginning in California with two nights at Blue Note Napa, December 15 and 16, and a concert at The Troubadour in West Hollywood on December 18. The shows continue in February 2024 with four dates in Colorado and stops in Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Minneapolis. 

Multi-instrumentalist Yussef Dayes' debut solo studio album, Black Classical Music, is out now. Dayes’ drum licks and Rocco Palladino’s bass are the anchors to this nineteen-track debut solo studio album, with Charlie Stacey (keys/synths), Venna (saxophone), Alexander Bourt (percussion), and a host of features including: Chronixx, Masego, Jamilah Barry, Tom Misch, Elijah Fox, Shabaka Hutchings, Miles James, Sheila Maurice Grey, Nathaniel Cross, Theon Cross, and the Chineke! Orchestra—the first professional orchestra in Europe to be made up of majority Black and ethnically diverse musicians.

Composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue and his Secret Society ensemble make their Nonesuch Records debut with Dynamic Maximum Tension, out now. The album pays homage to some of Argue’s key influences with original songs dedicated to R. Buckminster Fuller, Alan Turing, and Mae West. Cécile McLorin Salvant joins for “Mae West: Advice.” "Superb … Dynamic Maximum Tension is a delight," exclaims All About Jazz in a four-star review. The New York City Jazz Record adds: "Remarkable in its ambition, scope, and sheer length, this is Argue’s crowning achievement to date."

Hurray for the Riff Raff, aka Alynda Segarra, who was on Norah Jones’ podcast Norah Jones Is Playing Along last week, can now be seen in a video from the session in which the duo performs Lucinda Williams’ song “Drunken Angel,” from Williams' 1998 album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. You can watch it here.