Yola, Rhiannon Giddens, and Laurie Anderson took part in Great Performances: Grammy Salute to Music Legends, an awards ceremony and tribute concert to present the Recording Academy's Special Merit Awards on PBS. Yola performs "Up Above My Head" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, to whom Rhiannon Giddens presents a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award. Laurie Anderson performs "Gee-Whiz," her collaboration with Philip Glass, and presents him with the Trustees Award. You can watch it all here.

Rhiannon Giddens is the guest on the inaugural episode of NPR Music's Amplify with Lara Downes, a new bi-weekly series of intimate video conversations "with visionary Black musicians who are shaping the present and future of the art form," says NPR. "Rhiannon is my friend and soul sister, my fellow traveler on the path that leads to the deep center of American music," says Downes. "In this year of staying home and standing still, we reflect together on the long miles we've traveled so far and what we've found on our journeys, envisioning the wide open road ahead." You can watch it here.

The Spike Lee–directed film of David Byrne’s American Utopia debuts on HBO and HBO Max this Saturday, October 17, at 8pm ET/PT. The film gives audiences access to Byrne’s critically-acclaimed Broadway show that played to sold-out, record-breaking audiences at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in NYC. Make the special event even more so by hosting a Ballot Party for you and your family and friends to make your plan to vote; for further inspiration, we've put together a Ballot Party playlist of songs from and inspired by the American Utopia original cast album you can hear here.

Chris Thile presents Music is Life is Music: a masterclass series for people who make (or just love) music this fall. The series includes three Sunday classes: Listening on October 25, Writing on November 1, and Performing on November 8. "Music is Life is Music is a three-part look under the hood of my music-making process," Thile says. "I've been informed by the processes of so many great musicians, and I can’t wait to share all that with fellow music lovers and makers.”

Composer Clint Mansell spoke with NPR's Tim Greiving on Morning Edition about creating the score for director Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film, Requiem for a Dream. "Requiem for a Dream celebrates its 20th anniversary this fall" says Greiving, "and in that time there's at least one part of its legacy that's never faded: the music. The movie's haunted original score spawned a kind of breakout hit that would ripple through media for years to come." You can listen to the Morning Edition piece here. The 20th anniversary vinyl edition of the soundtrack, performed by Kronos Quartet, is due December 4 and is available to pre-order now.

Composer Tristan Perich has released a video featuring a selection from his piece Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics. The video was assembled from footage of three October 2019 performances of the piece conducted by Douglas Perkins in the Netherlands: Onderzeebootloods in Rotterdam (with dance by Lucinda Childs), Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, and De Doelen in Rotterdam, where the forthcoming album of the piece was recorded. You can watch it here.

Ahead of the premiere of Spike Lee's filmed version of David Byrne’s American Utopia on HBO this Saturday comes news that the show will return to the live stage on Broadway in the fall of 2021 at a theater to be announced. Performances will be begin on Friday, September 17, 2021. Tickets are on sale now. "We all need things to look forward to at this time," says Byrne. "I can't wait to get back on stage, live, in person with my fellow band members to perform for audiences in person. I realize now, more than ever, how much I miss performing this show with the band in front of a live Broadway audience."

David Byrne launches an online exhibition via Pace Gallery of fifty unique, hand-drawn illustrations he made this year while isolating in his Manhattan apartment. The Dingbats drawings explore themes and preoccupations associated with daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic—Byrne's way of expressing hope, a desire for connection, and the power of community. All proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the Arbutus Foundation, Byrne’s non-profit organization dedicated to re-imagining the world through projects that inspire and educate.

Mountain Man has released Mountain Man Sings Neil Young, the latest in its series of cover singles, featuring its version of "Through My Sails," from Young's 1975 album, Zuma. "Neil Young has been a pillar of the soundtrack along the Mountain Man road from Vermont to the windy ocean roads of California," says the trio. "'Through My Sails' is such a gentle secret at the end of Zuma and it felt immediately natural and right sinking into the harmonies of Neil Young with Crosby, Stills and Nash."

Rob Mazurek has released two new singles, “Galaxy 1000” and “The Careening Prism Within (Parable 43),” from his forthcoming Exploding Star Orchestra album, Dimensional Stardust, due November 20 on International Anthem / Nonesuch Records. Both songs come with accompanying videos directed by Mikel Patrick Avery, who presents the two new works as Part 2 and Part 3 of the First Kid in Space film series starring his daughter Olivia Avery-Velez; you can watch them both here. Part 1 accompanied the previously released track "A Wrinkle in Time Sets Concentric Circles Reeling."

Yola's debut performance on Austin City Limits premiered on PBS stations across the country this past weekend and can be seen here. Filmed before the pandemic, the session features Yola and her band performing songs from her 2019 Dan Auerbach–produced debut album, Walk Through Fire.

Singer and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant has been named a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. She was among the twenty-one new MacArthur Fellows for 2020 announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation this week. The annual fellowship, often referred to as the “Genius” grant, offers an unrestricted award of $625,000 over five years to individuals who, in the Foundation’s words, “have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” Details of her Nonesuch debut album, which she began recording this week, will be announced in early 2021.