k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang kicked off their three-week tour of Australia outside Perth on Saturday. "From the first long, soaring notes of the night she was in spectacular, pitch-perfect voice," says the West Australian. The Australian says: "To watch k.d. lang is to observe someone doing what they were surely born to do. Rarely do you see someone so at ease on stage, standing behind nothing but talent, wits and her sheer joy of performing." lang and the band give the first of six performances in Sydney on Wednesday. Fans in the area: read more for a chance to ask lang a question on TV next week.

Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, who passed away a year ago this week, will be celebrated in a free memorial concert at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight. The all-Górecki program, presented by LPR and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, features Górecki's Kleines Requiem für eine Polka, performed by Ensemble Signal, led by Brad Lubman, and Quasi una Fantasia: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 64, performed by the JACK Quartet.

The Black Keys, whose new album, El Camino, is due out December 6, are featured on the cover of the latest issue of American Songwriter. The band talks about the heady year-and-a-half that has followed the release of their album Brothers and about finding time between tour dates to write songs for the new album with producer Danger Mouse and put the record together in Auerbach's Nashville studio. "The hard work paid off," says American Songwriter. "El Camino cherry-picks the best things about previous Black Keys records ... and filters them through a smudged-up rock and roll lens."

Kronos Quartet will take part in a weeklong residency at Syracuse University that gets under way today. It will include workshops, a screening of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream with a post-screening Q&A, and a concert featuring Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 and the world premiere of Douglas Quin's Polar Suite. The piece incorporates soundscape recordings from the polar regions of the earth and outer space, processed samples, plus interactive electronics involving the K-Bow Bluetooth Sensor Bow designed by Keith McMillen.

New York's Lincoln Center presented two groundbreaking works by Philip Glass last week, when the New York Philharmonic and the Philip Glass Ensemble performed Koyaanisqatsi and the Metropolitan Opera gave the first of seven performances of the opera Satyagraha. The New York Times calls them "two of Mr. Glass’s most compelling scores." The New York Post calls Satyagraha "a masterpiece of musical and visual art." The AP calls it "spectacular," its music "frequently ravishing." Tuesday's performance includes a pre-concert talk by composer Nico Muhly and will be broadcast live on SIRIUS XM and the Met's website.

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang kick off their Australian tour ... Laurie Anderson brings Delusion to Mexico ... Carolina Chocolate Drops celebrate vaudeville in Chicago ... Ry Cooder talks LA stories in LA ... Ben Folds joins St. Louis Symphony ... Philip Glass's Satyagraha opens at the Met ... Kronos Quartet is in Vancouver ... Jessica Lea Mayfield headlines in Mississippi ... Audra McDonald takes her show to Florida ... Pat Metheny Trio plays Poland ... Randy Newman performs a benefit show at Wesleyan ... Punch Brothers launch tour with Paul Simon ... Stephen Sondheim receives Chicago Tribune Literary Award ... Sara Watkins tours Midwest with Blind Boys of Alabama ... and more ...

Punch Brothers kick off their fall tour supporting legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon across the US South and Midwest. The nearly three-week tour opens at the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans tonight and runs through November 23 at the EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall in Akron, Ohio. While on the road with Simon, Punch Brothers will play a solo show at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin, a week from Saturday.

Natalie Merchant's 2010 Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep, will be the basis for a curriculum unit taught to 3,500 New York City public school children in grades K-3 this fall. On the album, Merchant adapts the works of such poets as Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Graves into a musically kaleidoscopic set of new songs. She joins the Nashville Symphony in concert on November 13 and joins Levon Helm and others on November 18 in upstate New York for a concert to benefit those hit by Tropical Storm Irene.

Björk has unveiled the video for "Thunderbolt," off her new album, Biophilia. The video, which was shot at the world premiere of the live Biophilia show at the Manchester International Festival this summer, debuted on Boing Boing yesterday. Watch it here. Björk was awarded the Digital Genius Award at MTV's O Music Awards on Monday. People calls the Biophilia album "a sonic wonder." Blurt calls it "softly epic ... a delicate and highly tactile treat, a unique gem of innovation."

Carolina Chocolate Drops give the world premiere of Keep a Song in Your Soul, a special program celebrating the black roots of vaudeville, at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, tonight with additional performances through the weekend. The group will be joined by jazz tap virtuoso Reggio "The Hoofer" McLaughlin and ragtime piano ace Reginald Robinson, all of whom will participate in a Q&A after each show. Watch a preview video and a performance on Chicago's ABC7 here.

Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau, who recently concluded a US duo tour and will be bringing the show to Europe next week, are now slated to perform together for three duo shows in Australia in January. Redman and Mehldau will perform two shows in Sydney—at the Concourse Chatswood Concert Hall and City Recital Hall Angel Place—as part of the 2012 Sydney Festival and one at the Melbourne Recital Centre. The US duo tour resumes in the spring.

Sara Watkins and her brother Sean launch a three-week tour in support of the Blind Boys of Alabama tonight at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The tour will make stops in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and, of course, the Blind Boys' home state of Alabama. In mid-December, the Watkins join the Blind Boys out West for the group's Christmas show in California and Nevada.