San Francisco's Golden Gate Park hosts the 10th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival this weekend, and several Nonesuch artists will be there performing: T Bone Burnett and Punch Brothers kick things off on Friday; Carolina Chocolate Drops are up next with a Saturday afternoon set on the Banjo Stage; and Randy Newman and Emmylou Harris close things out on Sunday. The San Francisco Chronicle calls Harris, who has performed every year, "the silver-haired poster girl for San Francisco's favorite annual live music event."

Composer Peter Lieberson wrote Neruda Songs, based on Pablo Neruda’s poems, for his wife, the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, before her untimely passing in 2006. "They fell in love almost before meeting and throughout their nine years together her voice inspired some of Lieberson’s finest music," says the Financial Times. Neruda Songs receives its UK premiere with Sarah Connolly and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London on Friday.

Yesterday marked the release of Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's Lonely Avenue, about which the Huffington Post opines: "If only all music was so smart and hummable." Music OMH gives the album four stars and says the Folds/Hornby partnership "works like a marriage made in heaven." The Atlantic calls it "an adventure in genre-crossing and a testament to an artistic friendship. It's also a collection of 11 rich and unusual songs." Today, the video for the song "From Above" premieres on AOL, which calls it "priceless ... all you could ask for from a music video."

The Kennedy Center has announced the creation of The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards, to be presented annually on the composer's birthday to select teachers in appreciation for their contributions to their field. Sondheim was recently featured in the Daily Telegraph, which finds that the man "who revolutionised the musical with hits such as Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music, has lost none of his edge."

The Ben Folds / Nick Hornby album Lonely Avenue is out today and was featured on NPR's Morning Edition. USA Today says: "Obsessive pop-music fans will fall hard." The Boston Globe calls it "musical nirvana for lovers of the deft balance of sassy snark and sincere sentiment." The New York Daily News gives the album four stars, saying "Folds' music and Hornby's words make happy, effortless lovers." The Philadelphia Daily News gives Lonely Avenue an A, calling it "a wondrous ride." The Washington Post's Express Night Out says it's "as sharp and witty as either's solo work ... yielding mini-Hornby novels re-interpreted and set to music by Folds."

The Black Keys have kicked off their sold-out headlining tour, performing the first of two consecutive shows at the Hollywood Palladium last night. LA Weekly says Dan "Auerbach's guitar grabbed the crowd by the throat and refused to let go." Pat Carney's drumming "danced nimbly about like a lion tamer lovingly controlling his beast." Together, they "tore through a set that pleased both the purists and the newcomers ... Just two men making hot, dirty blues tunes that growled and crawled up the hips of every person in that place."

Tune in to PBS tonight at 8 PM ET for the premiere of The Tenth Inning, the new two-part, four-hour documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that picks up where Burns's landmark 1994 series Baseball left off. Part two of The Tenth Inning airs tomorrow night at 8. In celebration of the new film, the original 1994 Baseball soundtrack recording from Nonesuch Records is available again.

Congratulations to David Simon, the creator of The Wire (to which Nonesuch released the soundtrack) and Treme, who was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2010. The Fellows, selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future, receive $500,000 each in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. MacArthur Fellowships, often referred to as "Genius" grants, offer Fellows unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create, and explore. Dawn Upshaw was named a Fellow in 2007.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby will co-headline "Liner Notes," an event at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York City on Tuesday, October 12 to explore the cross-pollination of music and literature while raising funds for Housing Works, a New York-based HIV/AIDS service organization. Presented by SPIN and moderated by the magazine’s deputy editor, Steve Kandell, the event will be broadcast SIRIUS XM radio in November.

The Ben Folds / Nick Hornby album Lonely Avenue is out tomorrow. "The collaboration clicks," say the Associated Press/ABC News. "There's a depth to the lyrics rare in pop songs, and they inspire top-notch work from the ever-inventive Folds." Reuters suggests one reason the partnership makes sense: "Hornby and Folds have long steered away from their usual comfort zones and explored different forms of pop culture expression." Canada's National Post calls it "an inventive success."

Carolina Chocolate Drops honor Mike Seeger ... Laurie Anderson does Delusion at BAM ... The Black Keys launch headlining tour ... Emmylou Harris plays Ventura Hillsides benefit ... Wanda Jackson talks music at Oklahoma State ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica perform in Italy ... Kronos Quartet kicks off Berkeley's Fall Free for All! ... Randy Newman joins Louisville Orchestra ... Fernando Otero plays in NYC ... Mandy Patinkin performs Mamaloshen in Queens ... Punch Brothers play two Virginia shows ... Allen Toussaint continues Gulf Coast benefits with Neil Young ... and more ... 

Tune in to The Strand on the BBC World Service tonight to hear Ben Folds and Nick Hornby discuss their forthcoming album, Lonely Avenue. The Independent gives Lonely Avenue four stars, saying it "proves to be an intelligent, sometimes amusing, sometimes moving, but always engaging collection of songs, pitched somewhere between Randy Newman and an Anglo-American Divine Comedy." The Daily Express calls it "heavenly."