Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi will perform live with the Nashville Ballet on a five-city, twelve-performance tour of Lucy Negro Redux, a piece conceived, written, and choreographed by Paul Vasterling with music written by Giddens. The piece, based on the book by Caroline Randall Williams, debuted with three sold-out performances in Nashville in 2019. The tour begins with five performances at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, March 18-26, 2022, followed by stops in Denver, Santa Fe, Kansas City, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim died at his home in Connecticut today at the age of 91. "An intellectually rigorous artist who perpetually sought new creative paths, Mr. Sondheim was the theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century," writes the New York Times in its obituary. Several Broadway, film, and original cast productions of his works have been recorded for Nonesuch Records, including A Little Night Music, Road Show, Sweeney Todd, Company, Bounce, Into the Woods, The Frogs, Evening Primrose, Saturday Night, and Gypsy. His songs have also been featured on Nonesuch albums by Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, and Dawn Upshaw.

Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 64th Grammy Awards: The Black Keys' Delta Kream for Best Contemporary Blues Album; Rhiannon Giddens' They're Calling Me Home with Francesco Turrisi for Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Song, for the track "Avalon"; Spike Lee's film of David Byrne's American Utopia on Broadway for Best Music Film; Louis Andriessen's The only one and Caroline Shaw's Narrow Sea for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; k.d. lang and Tracy Young's "Constant Craving (Fashionably Late Remix)" for Best Remixed Recording; and Mike Elizondo for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, for work including Lake Street Dive's Obviously. You can hear all the nominated works here.

Composer, singer, and instrumental polymath Ben LaMar Gay's new album, Open Arms to Open Us, is out today on International Anthem / Nonesuch Records, and lives up to NPR's claim that "there is no one universe for Ben LaMar Gay, he just sonic booms from one sound to another." On the album, recorded at International Anthem studios in Chicago, Gay interweaves jazz, blues, ballads, R&B, raga, new music, nursery rhyme, Tropicália, two-step, hip-hop, and beyond in his most colorful and communicable work yet, an expression of his signature omni-genre, "Pan-Americana" brew.

"Unique is almost always an overstatement. Not when it comes to David Byrne," Kelly Corrigan, host of PBS's Tell Me More, says of her guest. "Even if you crossed Andy Warhol with Kurt Vonnegut and added some Mr. Rogers, you still wouldn't quite capture his idiosyncratic magic. He has been creating weird, wonderful art with singular precision for fifty-some years." You can watch their conversation—about his childhood, his career in music, bringing American Utopia to Broadway, and more—here.

Punch Brothers’ interpretation of Norman Blake's "Orphan Annie,” from their forthcoming album Hell on Church Street, is out now. Hell on Church Street, due January 14, is a reimagining of, and homage to, the late bluegrass great Tony Rice’s landmark solo album Church Street Blues. The record features a collection of songs by Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Bill Monroe, and others. Preorders from the Nonesuch and Punch Brothers stores include a limited-edition print signed by the band while supplies last. Punch Brothers tour North America in support of the album beginning in January.

Molly Tuttle releases “She’ll Change” today on Nonesuch Records. The new track, from her forthcoming Nonesuch debut, is co-written by Tuttle and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and is performed by an all-star ensemble of Nashville musicians, including Ron Block, Michael “Mike” Bub, Jason Carter, Dominick Leslie, Tina Adair; the recording also features Jerry Douglas, who co-produced the song with Tuttle. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway—her band of bluegrass virtuosos featuring mandolinist Dominick Leslie, banjoist Kyle Tuttle, fiddle player Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and bassist Shelby Means—will tour the US in 2022.

Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens and The Staves, who have been nominated for UK Americana Awards. Giddens is up for International Artist of the Year and The Staves for UK Artist of the Year and UK Album of the Year, for Good Woman. The UK Americana Awards will be presented in a ceremony at Hackney Empire in London on January 27, 2022, as part of AmericanaFest UK.

Jonny Greenwood is on the podcast Penderecki in Memoriam to talk with host Max Horowitz about his compositional work and his connection to that of the late Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, with whom Greenwood released an album on Nonesuch in 2012. "What I responded to is the rule-breaking, partly," Greenwood says of Penderecki's music. "It was seeing that just because music is written on paper, it doesn't necessarily have to fit within the confines of written limitations. And suddenly you realize, anything is possible." You can hear the conversation here.

Jeff Parker’s solo guitar album Forfolks is due December 10 on International Anthem / Nonesuch Records (CD om December 17). The album includes interpretations of Thelonious Monk's “Ugly Beauty” and the standard “My Ideal,” plus six original compositions: two earlier tunes, “Four Folks” and “La Jetée,” and four new loop-driven, stratiform works that marry melodic improvisation with electronic textures. As Parker says: “I am trying to create a sonic world for me to wander around in.” Watch the video for “Suffolk,” directed by Cauleen Smith, here. Parker will co-headline a US tour with Steve Gunn in December and next spring.

"One of my first dream guests was Rhiannon Giddens, who is one of my favorite musicians, a fantastic singer," Mark Bittman says of his guest, with Francesco Turrisi, on the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. "Her mission is to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased or ignored and to work toward a more accurate understanding of America’s musical origins. I’m giddy about Giddens’ music (sorry)." You can hear their conversation here.

Caroline Shaw is the guest on the latest episode of the podcast Conversations on Dance. She spoke with hosts Rebecca King Ferraro and Michael Sean Breeden, former Miami City Ballet dancers, at the 2021 Vail Dance Festival, about her music and composing for dance. You can hear their conversation here.