St Germain kicks off a North American tour featuring music from his new, self-titled album with a performance at Webster Hall in New York City on Saturday. The tour continues for the next three weeks with shows in Boston, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, and more; KCRW calls him "a must see at this year's Coachella" festival.

Kronos Quartet joins NYC David Bowie tribute at Radio City, premieres new pieces at Carnegie Hall ... Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly are at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville… Timo Andres debuts new music in Denver … Ry Cooder heads south to Florida, Georgia … Jeremy Denk performs solo in Boston … Joshua Redman concludes European tour in Spain … St Germain launches North American tour in NYC ... and more ...

Lake Street Dive has unveiled the video for "I Don't Care About You," off the album Side Pony. The video, filmed by Greg Kaplan at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC, premiered via Shazam yesterday and can now be seen here. Members of the band will take part in a Reddit AMA this Friday, April 1 (no fooling); fans can ask them anything at reddit.com/r/music at 1 PM ET. The band kicks off its European tour next week and resumes its US tour in late May.

The line-up for American Acoustic with Chris Thile, a four-day festival curated by Thile at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, June 22–25, 2016, has been announced. The event features collaborations between Thile and performers including Punch Brothers, Michael Daves, Edgar Meyer, Gabriel Kahane, Béla Fleck, Julian Lage, Merrill Garbus, and I'm With Her (Sara Watkins, Aoife O'Donovan, Sarah Jarosz). Tickets go on sale to Kennedy Center Members on Monday, April 4, and to the general public on Thursday, April 7.

"Shiver," a one-off collaboration between Sam Amidon and San Fermin that was conceived in the midst of their winter 2015 tour, premiered via NPR Music earlier today. You can hear it here. The song will be released digitally April 8, 2016. Amidon performs at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, this weekend, and at Justin Vernon's Eaux Claires Festival in Wisconsin, this summer.

The 2016 Big Ears Festival gets under way in Knoxville, Tennessee, today, and featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass, Olivia Chaney, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and Bombino. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville through Saturday.

Lake Street Dive winter tour culminates with sold-out shows at Beacon Theatre in NYC, State Theatre in Maine … Louis Andriessen's De Materie North American stage premiere continues in NYC … Rhiannon Giddens concludes Australia tour at Byron Bay Bluesfest … Joshua Redman is in Luxembourg … Chris Thile plays solo set at Largo in LA … Rokia Traoré brings Né So to US … and more …

Rhiannon Giddens brings a successful tour of Australia to a close at Byron Bay Bluesfest on Friday. While on tour, Giddens visited Warner Music Australia to perform "Up Above My Head," off her album Tomorrow Is My Turn. You can watch it here. She also stopped by ABC Radio National's The Music Show to discuss the album and perform "Water Boy." The Sydney Morning Herald gives four stars each to her Sydney and Melbourne concerts, describing the show as "brilliant American music without borders." Giddens kicks off the next leg of her US tour in early April.

Punch Brothers have announced several shows in Japan and Australia for this August, starting with a three-night residency at Blue Note Tokyo August 3–5, followed by a tour of Australia: in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne. Tickets are on sale now. The new dates follow the band's US spring tour, which begins in a double bill with Dave Rawlings Machine in Charleston on April 29 and includes sets at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and much more.

Nonesuch Records releases the Brad Mehldau Trio’s Blues and Ballads, the trio’s first new release since 2012’s Where Do You Start, on June 3, 2016. Blues and Ballads comprises interpretations of songs by other composers, this time with the focus on blues and ballads implied by the album’s title, including works by Cole Porter, Charlie Parker, Lennon & McCartney, and Jon Brion. Blues and Ballads is available to pre-order with an instant download of the album track "Little Person," which you can preview here.

Louis Andriessen's monumental work De Materie receives its North American stage premiere with performances at the Park Avenue Armory in NYC tonight through March 30. The production, directed by Heiner Goebbels, is performed by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), led by conductor Peter Rundel, along with ChorWerk Ruhr. The Los Angeles Times has called De Materie "the Dutch opera that the world at large had long been waiting for." The Park Avenue Armory presents a number of related events this week, including a set for two pianos with Andriessen and Jason Moran on Wednesday and an Artist Talk with the creators on Saturday.

Natalie Merchant, currently touring Europe, stopped by BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show yesterday morning to perform "Where I Go," from her new album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. She is "one of the most distinctive singer songwriters of the last 30 years," says Marr. See why in the performance here. The Daily Telegraph, in its four-star review of her show at London's Royal Albert Hall last week, says, "As her spellbound audience swayed, it felt that we were in the presence of a rare breed: an artist who has never compromised, but instead evolved with integrity, thought and meaning." The Guardian says: "Merchant’s lush acoustic, orchestral set is dramatic, intimate and impressive to witness." The tour continues in Europe this week and culminates at NYC's Beacon Theatre next week.