John Adams conducts his Scheherezade.2 with Cincinnati Symphony ... Sam Amidon tours Europe ... Laurie Anderson curates Live Ideas Festival in NYC ... Timo Andres plays in NYC ... Jacob Cooper performs his Silver Threads in Portland ... Jeremy Denk tours with Florida Symphony ... Fatoumata Diawara tours US ... Rhiannon Giddens tours Northeast ... Richard Goode plays Beethoven and more in Baltimore ... Kronos Quartet is in France ... Audra McDonald tours New Jersey ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman trios tour Europe, separately ... and more ...

Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record stores, takes place this Saturday, April 18, and included among the special limited-edition vinyl releases are the Robert Plant 10" More Roar, a double LP of Steve Reich's Grammy-winning Music for 18 Musicians, and a Buena Vista Social Club 7" single.

Audra McDonald and Björk have been named to the TIME 100 List, the magazine's annual list of the world's Most Influential People, as was Richard Linklater, the director of the film Boyhood. They join a list of honorees that includes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis, and Kanye West, among others.

Rhiannon Giddens was the subject of a feature on PBS NewsHour, looking at her solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. "Her debut celebrates women who influenced her, some famous like Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline, others, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Libba Cotten, much less so," says NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown. "The album also showcases Giddens’ range through gospel, blues, country, and jazz." Watch the NewsHour piece here. Forbes, reviewing her recent NYC tour stop, exclaims: "Besides a thrilling voice, she comes at you with a barrage of sounds and sights and movements from an arsenal of talents that will positively floor you ... She’s a musician’s musician, and, moreover, a people’s musician, one of the best ever."

Olivia Chaney, whose debut album, The Longest River, is due out April 28, will perform a number of shows celebrating the release in the United Kingdom in May, in Manchester, Edinburgh, and London, before heading to North America for a three-week tour starting in Washington, DC, on June 4 and culminating in New York City on June 25. During a recent visit to the States, Chaney stopped by The Living Room in Brooklyn—a stop on her upcoming tour—to perform "Imperfections" for a new video, which you can watch here.

The Staves celebrated the release of their new album, If I Was, with a performance at Wilton's Music Hall in London last month. You can now watch four performances from the concert: three songs from the album—"Make It Holy," with album producer Justin Vernon, "Teeth White," and "Black & White"—as well as their take, with Vernon, on the Bruce Springsteen classic "I'm on Fire." Watch them here.

Tyondai Braxton shares a new track, "Gracka," from his Nonesuch debut album HIVE1. "'Gracka' is a nickname for my wife Grace and it reminds me of her," says Braxton. "The piece emulates her always surprising, always beautiful spirit and down to earth nature." Hear the track here. Braxton also announces the Canadian premiere of HIVE at Montreal's MUTEK Festival on May 30, followed by a three-night HIVE residency at The Kitchen in NYC, June 4–6, and solo dates in Copenhagen, Ghent, and London. 

Sam Amidon, whose latest album, Lily-O, was released in September, kicks off a tour of Europe with a performance in Ghent, Belgium, tonight, followed by a two-week tour of the Benelux countries, Ireland, and the UK with Sharon Van Etten, and a ten-day solo tour culminating in a performance at Islington Assembly Hall in London on May 10. Amidon then heads to the US for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrating the music of Arthur Russell and several summer festivals, including Wilco's Solid Sound, Justin Vernon's Eaux Claires, and Pickathon.

The Staves celebrated the release of their new album, If I Was, with a performance at Wilton's Music Hall in London last month. The concert included, among other songs from the album, the tune "Teeth White." You can watch the performance of that song here. The trio is currently touring Europe and has just announced a tour of the United Kingdom for this autumn. The Staves also perform at the Eaux Claries Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where they recorded the album with producer Justin Vernon.

The Big Ears Festival 2015, which took place in Knoxville, Tennessee, late last month, was the subject of a feature profile on PBS NewsHour on Friday. The piece looks at how the festival "breaks barriers for open-minded music lovers," not least from performers like this year's artists in residence, Kronos Quartet, and their fellow Nonesuch artists to perform at Big Ears, Rhiannon Giddens, Laurie Anderson, Sam Amidon, and Tyondai Braxton. Kronos's David Harrington and Giddens talk with NewsHour about this idea and how it manifest itself in their own music. You can watch the piece here.

Rhiannon Giddens, Emmylou Harris, and Rodney Crowell will perform in "The Gospel Tradition," at The White House on Tuesday, April 14, as part of the series In Performance at the White House. They will join President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and an esteemed group of performers, including Aretha Franklin, Darlene Love, and Lyle Lovett, to pay tribute to the fundamental role gospel music has played in the American musical tradition. The President’s remarks and the entire event will be streamed live at whitehouse.gov/live at 7 PM ET. The Gospel Tradition: In Performance at the White House will air on PBS on Friday, June 26.

Alarm Will Sound performs Adams, Reich, and Braxton, and Timo Andres performs his Shy and Mighty at Seoul's Right Now Music Festival ... Laurie Anderson performs in upstate NY ... Fatoumata Diawara starts US tour ... Rhiannon Giddens takes tour to mid-Atlantic ... Audra McDonald sings at SUNY Potsdam ... Brad Mehldau plays three sold-out shows in Paris, including a set with Tigran Hamasyan ... Punch Brothers tour Texas ... Joshua Redman Trio tours Europe ... and more ...