Joshua Redman will join San Francisco Conservatory of Music as Artistic Director of Roots, Jazz, and American Music. The RJAM program is a collaboration between SFCM and SFJAZZ. “When we launched RJAM three years ago, we set out to create an innovative program that would prepare the next generation of jazz musicians for multifaceted, entrepreneurial careers,” said SFCM President David Stull. “Building the program with our faculty and watching our first RJAM students flourish has been tremendously rewarding. Now with Joshua Redman at the helm, our students have direct access to some of the greatest minds—and players—in jazz.” Redman will share his expertise with students in one-on-one sessions, studio classes, ensembles, and lectures.

The Magnetic Fields have released "Kraftwerk in a Blackout," a new song from their forthcoming album, Quickies, due in May. Quickies features twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds. You can download "Kraftwerk in a Blackout" now when you pre-order the album, and watch the video, by Robert Edridge-Waks, here.

Composer and pianist Timo Andres performed a Facebook Live concert for Qobuz USA from his home in Brooklyn. He played five pieces from the upcoming album I Still Play by Brad Mehldau, Nico Muhly, Donnacha Dennehy, John Adams, and Andres himself. You can watch the performance here. I Still Play, due May 22, is eleven new solo piano compositions by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, written in honor of the label’s longtime President Bob Hurwitz on the occasion of his 2017 shift into the Chairman Emeritus role.

In this age of anxiety, we hope this playlist—fourteen hours of songs from some forty years of Nonesuch recordings—may bring some calm. Available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Newport Festivals Foundation has established the Newport Festivals Musician Relief Fund to provide financial relief to musicians in the folk and jazz communities experiencing a loss of income as a result of COVID-19, through rapid micro and full grants. The focus and priority of the fund is on artists who have played the Newport Jazz or Folk Festivals and those in the Rhode Island community; all other applications will be considered on a case by case basis.

Rhiannon Giddens has joined with musician Amanda Palmer and author Neil Gaiman to create Art Is Alive, a new online resource guide to support artistic and creative freelance communities whose livelihoods have been so greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are hoping that this website can act as a kind of general yellow pages for the current money emergency in the art and music world," they say. "We like to call it our COVID-19 directory of give and take." Art Is Alive also offers a place for artists to interact, to share information as new events, new resources, and new ideas develop.

Yola was joined by her housemates, the members of Birds of Chicago, to perform a three-song set for Rolling Stone's new In My Room series from her home in Nashville. They perform an a cappella take on Etta James's "At Last" then pick up the instruments for Yola's "It Ain't Easier," from her album Walk Through Fire, and Birds of Chicago's own "Second Cousin." You can watch it here.

Devendra Banhart filmed a Son & Lumière session for Télérama while on tour in Paris earlier this year. He performed what Télérama calls "two pieces full of feeling that flow like honey," the songs "October 12" and "Carolina," from his new album, Ma, at the famed Parisian photography studios Studio Harcourt. You can watch the set here.

On May 22, Nonesuch releases I Still Play, an album of eleven new solo piano compositions by artists who have recorded for Nonesuch Records, written in honor of the label’s longtime President Bob Hurwitz as he became Chairman Emeritus in 2017. The album features works by John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, and Randy Newman, performed by Andres, Mehldau, Newman, and Jeremy Denk. Pre-order to download Nico Muhly's "Move" played by Andres now; you can follow along on the score as you watch him perform it here.

More than 100 artists, arts leaders, and professors in the field have announced the New Music Solidarity Fund, an initiative that aims to grant emergency funding to musicians impacted by COVID-19. At the time of the announcement, more than $130,000 has been pledged. The fund will be administered through New Music USA, and all donations are fully tax-deductible through New Music USA’s 501c3 status. The fund will run until April 30.

The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunite with the July 10, 2020, release of RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing. The album features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade. A live version of Redman’s “Right Back Round Again” may be seen here, in a video directed by Matthew Beighley; the album version is available now. The band tours internationally this summer and fall.

Chris Thile performed on CBS This Morning: Saturday in a special socially distanced Saturday Sessions set. Thile performed two songs for not far from home, in The Bridge Studio in Brooklyn: a cover of Radiohead's "True Love Waits," his own "Laysong," and a piece by Bach. You can watch all three here.