Emmylou Harris has been nominated for three awards at the 2013 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show including Artist of the Year. She is also nominated with Rodney Crowell for Album of the Year and Duo/Group of the Year for their acclaimed 2013 collaboration, Old Yellow Moon. The duo, currently touring Europe in support of the album, will resume its US tour in June including two shows with special guest She & Him. The Americana Honors & Awards returns to the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 18, 2013, as part of the Americana Music Festival.

Audra McDonald, whose first solo album in seven years, Go Back Home, is due May 21, performed songs from the album and more at Lincoln Center's spring gala last week. The concert will be telecast on PBS presented by Live From Lincoln Center on May 24. "Absolutely thrilling," raves the New York Times' Stephen Holden. "The very sound of the word 'thrilling,' with its suggestion of an embedded trill, evokes qualities inherent in Ms. McDonald’s soprano, which seemed to unfurl in ever-richer textures as she imbued songs with a sense of bursting possibility ... A defining voice of our time."

California-based singer/songwriter Nataly Dawn launches a tour of Europe for the first time, in support of her critically acclaimed new album, How I Knew Her, including two UK headline shows in London (Slaughtered Lamb, May 15) and Nottingham (Rescue Rooms, May 16), and seven shows in the UK supporting Lord Huron, starting at Junction 2 in Cambridge tonight. The European tour also includes dates in France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. 

The music of Donnacha Dennehy's 2011 Nonesuch debut album Grá agus Bás, which NPR called "a revelation," will be performed by the artists featured on the album—Crash Ensemble led by conductor Alan Pierson with vocalists Iarla O’Lionáird on the title piece and Dawn Upshaw on the song cycle That the Night Come—at The Kennedy Center this Tuesday and in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Friday. The concerts mark the US and New York premieres of That the Night Come.

The inaugural BottleRock Napa Valley Festival runs through the weekend, including performances from The Black Keys, Iron and Wine, and Carolina Chocolate Drops ... Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet perform her Landfall in New Jersey ... Timothy Andres plays Philip Glass in London ... Devendra Banhart tours Southern California ... Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter duet in the Northeast ... Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell tour the UK ... Gidon Kremer performs in the Czech Republic ... Joshua Redman tours Europe ... Chris Thile & Michael Daves tour the West Coast ... Rokia Traoré plays European festival sets ... Sara Watkins tours California ... and more ...

Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and guitar maven Michael Daves launch a week-long duo tour of the US West Coast, featuring music from their 2011 album Sleep with One Eye Open, with a performance at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco tonight, followed by shows in LA, Portland, and Seattle; they reunite in July for the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in upstate New York. The duo makes for "a rip-roaring partnership," says the New York Times. "Bluegrass, in their hands, gets roughed up in the best possible way, with skill and fervor, and a touch of abandon." Thile and his fellow Punch Brothers perform at a number of bluegrass festivals starting later this month.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have kicked off their European tour in support of their new duets album, Old Yellow Moon. These special "An Evening With Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell" shows feature the acclaimed artists (and longtime friends) performing material spanning their vast catalogues. Following last night's concert in Manchester, England, the tour makes additional stops throughout the UK and Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland before concluding in Hamburg, Germany, on May 31. The next leg of their US tour begins on June 15. 

Randy Newman, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month, was a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday. He spoke with host Neal Conan about his career in music, his songwriting process, writing for film scores, and more. Listeners of the show wrote in to pick their favorite Randy Newman tune. Their choice: "Political Science." The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be presented on HBO on Saturday, May 18, at 9 PM ET/PT. Newman has a number of live shows scheduled later this spring and summer.

Iron and Wine was the musical guest on Conan last night. Singer-songwriter Sam Beam and his band performed "Low Light Buddy of Mine" off their Nonesuch Records debut album, Ghost on Ghost. They also gave a web-exclusive performance of two other album tracks, "Caught in the Briars / Sundown." Watch the performances here. Iron and Wine kicks off an eight-city US tour at the Bottle Rock Napa Valley festival in Napa, California, this Saturday, followed by a run of shows along the East Coast with special guests The Secret Sisters.

Joshua Redman, whose latest album, Walking Shadows, was released this week, kicks off a tour of Europe with his Quartet, featuring Aaron Goldberg on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums in Le Mans, France, tonight, followed by additional stops in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. Redman also heads to the UK to perform with bassist Christian McBride at Wigmore Hall in London. He returns to the States for a June 4 show at NYC's Town Hall with the quartet featured on Walking Shadows—Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Brian Blade—and an orchestra.

Walking Shadows, Joshua Redman’s first recording to include an orchestral ensemble, is out now. Its core ensemble is a quartet featuring Brad Mehldau, who produced the album, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade. Walking Shadows includes original tunes from both Redman and Mehldau along with works by a wide range of composers, like John Mayer and Pino Palladino, Kern and Hammerstein, and Lennon and McCartney. The album is "never less than exceptionally beautiful," exclaims Buffalo News, an "unmitigated triumph ... one of the jazz discs of the year." MusicOMH concurs, suggesting this "gorgeous" album "will prove to be one of the year’s most satisfying jazz listens."

Sam Amidon is set to make his Nonesuch Records debut with the release of his album Bright Sunny South on May 14. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The album is streaming in full all this week exclusively at Pitchfork as part of its Advance multimedia early-listen experience. Amidon will perform songs from the new album at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge on May 16, followed by a European tour of headline shows and festival sets, and returning to the States to tour in June.