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.”

Happy Halloween! When darkness falls from a phantom thread of holy dread, panic, and primal anxiety, as dark angels and dead things descend and zombie boys, sinister kids, and ghosts come howlin' for you in the final hour of these strange times when nothing is taboo, may you find an epiphany—some strange asylum and eternal light in the dark matter of this Nonesuch playlist, featuring music from Kronos Quartet, Clint Mansell, Jonny Greenwood, William Brittelle, Daniel Wohl, Laurie Anderson, John Adams, Philip Glass, Tigran Hamasyan, Jeremy Denk, Björk, The Black Keys, The Magnetic Fields, Michael Daves, The Staves, Lianne La Havas, and more.

Congratulations to Kronos Quartet, which has won the prestigious Ouevreprijs—career achievement prize—at the Edison Klassiek Awards. "Kronos Quartet has recorded more than fifty albums, invariably filled with new notes for the string quartet," says the jury. "It is high time to crown this unique achievement with an Edison Klassiek Ouevreprijs." The annual Dutch music prize will be presented in a ceremony and concert in Amsterdam during NPO 2's Podium Witteman on NPO 2 on November 24.

Mandy Patinkin, whose first album in seventeen years, Children and Art, was released on Nonesuch last week, launches a thirty-city concert tour, accompanied by pianist Adam Ben-David, in Philadelphia tonight. The tour, which features songs from the new album, made with pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett, and their digital Diary series, continues through February 2020. Stops include San Francisco, DC, Toronto, Chicago, Nashville, Detroit, Ft. Lauderdale, and more.