Nickel Creek helped kick off the second half of the milestone 40th season of Austin City Limits when the band's set aired on PBS this past weekend, on a double bill with The Avett Brothers. You can watch the episode at pbs.org. Nickel Creek—Chris Thile, Sara Watkins, and Sean Watkins—taped its Austin City Limits set in August during the band's 25th anniversary tour, celebrating the release of its Nonesuch Records debut album, A Dotted Line. This was the trio's third appearance on the series. 

As 2014 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of 2015, it's time to take a look back and remember all of the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists over the past year—a year in which we marked our 50th anniversary. Many Nonesuch artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made music critics' and fans' year-end best lists in 2014. Here, in words and music and in chronological order, is a look back at the year in Nonesuch music.

Punch Brothers, Rhiannon Giddens, and the duo of Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer will be among the performers at the 42nd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, taking place June 18–21, 2015, the weekend of the summer solstice. The preliminary lineup for the much-loved Colorado event was announced earlier today, just before the winter solstice. Among the other performers are Thile's fellow Punch Brother Noam Pikelny, who will perform with fiddler Stuart Duncan.​

Randy Newman, Mandy Patinkin, and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy joined a panoply of performers, politicians, diplomats, musicians, actors, journalists, writers, athletes, Sesame Street notables and more for the final episode of The Colbert Report last night. Newman, at the piano, accompanied host Stephen Colbert and this cavalcade of stars, friends, and well-wishers, both in the studio and afar (even far, far away in outer space), to bid the show a fond farewell, singing a rousing rendition of the classic tune “We’ll Meet Again.” You can watch the stellar sing-a-long here.

Rhiannon Giddens, who appears and sings in Apple's new holiday commercial, is featured in a new video that goes behind-the-scenes of the commercial, in which a young girl discovers an old Voice-O-Graph recording of her grandmother at a younger age (Giddens) singing the Gershwins' "Love Is Here to Stay," and uses GarageBand to reimagine the song in a modern context. In the new video, Giddens takes viewers inside a vintage Voice-O-Graph booth and reflects on the power of music to bring people together across distances, generational and otherwise. Watch it here.

Following recent announcements of NPR Music's favorite albums and songs of 2014, the listeners have had their say, as the poll results of the NPR Music Listeners Favorite Albums of 2014 are in. Featured among them are four Nonesuch Records releases: The Black Keys' Turn Blue, Conor Oberst's Upside Down Mountain, Nickel Creek's A Dotted Line, and Robert Plant's lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar.

Audra McDonald will bring her acclaimed portrayal of Billie Holiday from Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill to HBO. Filming before a live audience at Café Brasil in New Orleans this month, the special will feature McDonald in her history-making performance as the jazz icon. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill tells Billie Holiday’s life story through the songs that made her famous. Audra McDonald became Broadway’s most decorated performer when she won her sixth Tony Award for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill earlier this year. 

Congratulations to Richard Linklater's film Boyhood, which has been nominated for eight Critics Choice Awards—Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Linklater, Best Acting Ensemble, Best Supporting Actor for Ethan Hawke, Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette, Best Young Actor/Actress for Ellar Coltrane, and Best Editing for Sandra Adair—and to Paul Thomas Anderson's film Inherent Vice, which is up for four: Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson's adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel, Best Supporting Actor for Josh Brolin, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. The San Francisco Film Critics Circle also included both films in its year-end accolades earlier this week.

Rhiannon Giddens has released a new song, "Black Is the Color," streaming now, and available as an instant download with pre-orders of her upcoming T Bone Burnett–produced debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. You can listen to the song, as well as other instant download tracks “Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind” and “Shake Sugaree,” here. Giddens appears and sings in a new Apple commercial, featuring her rendition of the Gershwin classic “Love Is Here to Stay.” The video finds a young girl discovering an old recording of her grandmother at a younger age (Giddens) singing, and then watches as the girl uses her iPad to reimagine the song in a modern context. Watch the commercial here.

Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, Inherent Vice, is out now on CD and digitally, with the vinyl to follow March 3. An adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel, Inherent Vice, now playing in select theaters in NYC and LA, is set in the tail end of the psychedelic ’60s. The soundtrack features nine compositions by Greenwood, an unreleased Radiohead tune performed by members of Supergrass, plus other recordings from the movie’s era. The New York Times calls it an "excellent playlist." Additional performers include The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Neil Young, Can, and The Marketts, among others.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Inherent Vice opens in NYC and LA theaters, featuring music by Jonny Greenwood ... The Black Keys take their Turn Blue tour to the Carolinas ... Brad Mehldau Trio rounds out its US fall tour in the Northeast ... Natalie Merchant performs on Long Island ... Conor Oberst plays KCSN benefit in LA with Ryan Adams and David Gray ...

Richard Linklater's film Boyhood has landed on a number of lists of Best Movies of 2014, including all three New York Times film critics: A.O. Scott—"In my 15 years of professional movie reviewing, I can’t think of any film that has affected me the way Boyhood did"—and Stephen Holden, who both place the film in the No. 1 spot on their lists, and Manohla Dargis, whose list is alphabetical. The film is also No. 1 on the year's best lists from New York magazine, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, and Indiewire.