Chris Thile brings his solo tour, featuring music from his new album, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, back home to New York City for a sold-out performance in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. The tour continues with stops in Philadelphia, Princeton, Toronto, and Albany before heading back down South, then on to Europe in November. Thile spoke with the New York Times about the tour and the music of Bach: "You can get me moving, and be playing some of the most profoundly well-organized music that humans could possibly imagine. It’s visceral, but everything’s in its right place."

Tune in to hear Sara Watkins on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor ... Bombino tours Benelux ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter head East ... Dr. John is in the South ... Iron and Wine plays upstate NY ... Kronos Quartet performs Philip Glass in Vancouver ... Audra McDonald tours Texas ... Brad Mehldau's Mehliana is at Largo in LA ... Natalie Merchant joins the Alabama Symphony Orchestra ... Randy Newman goes to Galveston ... Joshua Redman is in Rome ... Chris Thile brings Bach to Boston ... and more ...

Pianist and composer Brad Mehldau kicks off a ten-day US tour in a new electric duo with drummer Mark Guiliana called Mehliana. The configuration presents Mehldau performing on Fender Rhodes and an arsenal of vintage synthesizers while Guiliana accompanies on drums and effects. The tour begins at The Triple Door in Seattle tonight and includes shows in San Francisco and LA, as well as stops in Illinois, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Mehldau then heads to Europe for a week of solo shows before he and Guiliana reunite for a two-week Mehliana tour of Europe and the UK. To celebrate the tour, Nonesuch is offering an early listen to "Hungry Ghost," a track off the forthcoming Mehliana album, due in early 2014. Listen here.

Bombino, whose Nonesuch Records debut album, Nomad, was released earlier this year, launches the latest leg of his world tour with a performance at Poppodium Tilburg in the Netherlands, Thursday night. The 30-day European tour continues with additional stops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, and Finland, before heading to the UK for a seven-city run there, followed by a return to the Continent for several shows in Switzerland, France, and Italy. Bombino and his band then make their way across the Atlantic for a North American tour starting in November.

The ninth annual Holiday Cheer for FUV concert will bring an evening of collaboration to the Beacon Theatre: Iron & Wine and Friends, featuring Calexico as house band for a one-time evening of song and camaraderie. The show will take place Tuesday, December 10, at 8 PM and will benefit New York public radio station 90.7 FM WFUV. Joining them will be songwriter/performer Nick Lowe, plus other artists to be announced. Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on Friday, October 18, at noon.

Nataly Dawn, one half of the duo Pomplamoose, made her Nonesuch Records debut with the release of her solo album How I Knew Her earlier this year, comprising 12 autobiographical, introspective songs by Dawn, produced by her longtime partner Jack Conte. She has now unveiled the official music video for the album track "Leslie." "[Director] Eric Kallevig did something magical to my sad song," Dawn tells American Songwriter, which premiered the video: "he cast light on the story behind the lyrics, without sacrificing any of the mystery." Watch it here.

Chris Thile's new solo album, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, was released to critical acclaim earlier this year. The album comprises three works written for solo violin, including Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001, which Thile performs in its entirety for a new video, available here. He is in the midst of a solo tour of North America, performing music from the new album and more.

Jeremy Denk performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations at The Kennedy Center and Chicago Symphony Center ... Alarm Will Sound kicks off Metropolitan Museum of Art residency ... Sam Amidon rounds out US tour in LA ... Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter tour the US ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell take tour to Texas ... Gidon Kremer is in Germany ... Kronos Quartet is in Wisconsin ... Audra McDonald sings a Chicago Symphony Center ... Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club closes out US tour in NYC ... Joshua Redman tours Netherlands ... Chris Thile is in the South ... Rokia Traoré plays Paris ... and more ...

Alarm Will Sound begins two important components of its 2013–14 concert season this week: its second "St. Louis season" and its season-long residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The latter comprises four concerts, starting this Friday and including the New York premiere of Steve Reich's new piece, Radio Rewrite, on an all-Reich program November 16.

Gidon Kremer organized a concert at Berlin's Philharmonic Hall on Monday, titled To Russia with Love, to honor slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and support human rights in Russia. Performers included Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Emanuel Pahud, and others, in a program of works Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky; the premiere of a new piece by Giya Kancheli; and more. You can watch the complete concert here, via Arte Live Web.

Jeremy Denk has written a brief personal history for this week's issue of The New Yorker, the Money Issue. In the piece, his third for the magazine, Denk shares a story from early in his career. He is also featured on the latest edition of The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, discussing his new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The album includes video "liner notes," about which Tom Moon writes in Medium: "After hearing him speak with such precision about the details of the work, it’s an absolute delight to hear him use so much of his personality—his poise and exacting sense of order, his restraint leavened by a childlike peering-around-corners curiosity—to bring Bach to life."

Audra McDonald and Mandy Patinkin were special guests on The Colbert Report, as the show threw what it humbly dubbed the "Wedding of the Century." Host Stephen Colbert officiated an on-air wedding ceremony for a couple whose wedding plans were thwarted by the US government shutdown. To help celebrate the newlyweds, Patinkin offered a non-denominational Jewish blessing and McDonald sang Billy Idol's "White Wedding" for the couple's first dance. Watch it here. Audra McDonald was due to perform at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, this week, but the concert was canceled due to the government shutdown and will be rescheduled.