David Byrne has co-created a new immersive production with writer Mala Gaonkar called Theater of the Mind, which will premiere via the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Off-Center in August 2020. Audience members will be led through a journey of self-reflection, discovery, and imagination, grounded in neuroscience, using stories inspired from the creators' lives. "I have long had an interest in creating something that incorporated the sensory experiments we often read about in a way that was entertaining and engaging," says Byrne, "but still gave people an experience that was visceral and profound."

Gaby Moreno begins a two-week US Roots Rising! tour with Liz Vice and Matt Andersen. The tour begins in the Pacific Northwest this weekend, followed by stops in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Moreno then heads East to perform from ¡Spangled!, her album with Van Dyke Parks, at NYC's Kaufman Music Center, join Ben Folds and the NSO at The Kennedy Center in DC, and headline a show in Miami.

Caroline Shaw performs her song "And So" with Attacca Quartet in a new video for Lincoln Center, which you can watch here. The artists perform an all-Shaw program, including works from their album Orange, in a free concert for Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival on November 14. "It's Shaw the singer and composer who shines in this video," says NPR Music's Tom Huizenga. "Shaw's voice, at turns ferocious and tender, emits a purity of purpose." He had named Orange to NPR's list of the Best New Albums of April: "An arresting tribute to the enduring art of the string quartet."

Laurie Anderson is a guest curator of the 2020 New Zealand Festival. She joins fellow guest curators Lemi Ponifasio and Bret McKenzie in selecting works for the event, which takes place in Wellington from February 21 to March 15. Anderson has programmed a symphonic concert, a virtual-reality experience, an improvisational ensemble, an interactive soundscape, a film screening, and a concert for dogs. Also at the festival are Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi, performing from their album there is no Other.

The Black Keys are heading back out on the road this week to start their second leg of their tour of North America, supported by Modest Mouse and Shannon and the Clams. This leg of the tour begins in Sunrise, Florida, and makes stops in Orlando, Raleigh, Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, and Vancouver. "It’s all about the groove and being able to lock in to all those guitars,” Dan Auerbach tells Rolling Stone about putting together the setlist for the tour. “It’s just fun."

Rhiannon Giddens is a guest on Dolly Parton's America, the new WNYC podcast that explores why Parton and her music bring people together in a divided world. In the episode, which you can hear here, host Jad Abumrad looks to Giddens's performance of the Appalachian ballad "Little Margaret," on her new album, there is no Other, with Francesco Turrisi on the Iranian frame drum, the daf, to find connections across cultures. "There are these moments that remind us that we all come from the same source," Giddens says. "The human story is about migration, it is about movement, it is about one group moves from A to B and in that, they affect and are themselves affected."

Alarm Will Sound has released a new video for "Keening," from its recording of Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger. Dennehy's piece explores the emotional, political, and socioeconomic devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine. The video was made by visual designer Deborah Johnson, who was inspired by the piece to connect her own explorations of inherited trauma with the libretto's documentation of the Great Famine. You can watch it here.

Congratulations to Yola, who has been nominated for two UK Americana Awards: UK Artist of the Year and UK Album of the Year for her solo debut album, Walk Through Fire. Yola also performs on the self-titled album from the supergroup Highwomen, which was nominated for International Album of the Year. Another nominee in that category is Songs of Our Native Daughters, featuring Rhiannon Giddens. The fifth-annual UK Americana Awards ceremony will take place at Troxy in London on January 30.

Vagabon plays two nights in DC as special guest of Angel Olsen … Sam Amidon headlines Walthamstow Folk Fest in London … Laurie Anderson gives Brooklyn Public Library lecture … Devendra Banhart, Rhiannon Giddens, Rachael & Vilray tour Midwest … Carminho comes to Carnegie Hall … Jeremy Denk joins Tapiola Sinfonietta in Finland … Gaby Moreno concludes European tour … Mandy Patinkin takes tour to New England … Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from NYC … Yola plays Leeds with Greta Van Fleet …

Rachael & Vilray begin a fifteen-city US tour at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago tonight. The tour, featuring music from their self-titled debut album, includes stops in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, DC, Brooklyn, and more.

Rhiannon Giddens is the guest on a special bonus episode of Following Harriet, a podcast series that takes a look at the life of Harriet Tubman and the broader context of the nineteenth-century experience of African Americans. She discusses Tubman's life and legacy, and Giddens's song "At the Purchaser's Option," from her album Freedom Highway. She was inspired to write the song by an 1830s advertisement for a young enslaved woman whose nine-month-old baby was "at the purchaser's option." You can listen to the conversation here.

Acclaimed Portuguese fado singer Carminho begins a two-week, seven-city tour of North America, featuring music from her new album, Maria, at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in NYC on Sunday. The tour continues with performances in Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Alexandria, VA. PopMatters calls Maria “a testament to the power of fado as well as a stunning examination of her musical prowess.”