John Adams leads El Niño with Dawn Upshaw at Carnegie Hall ... Amadou & Mariam play the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo ... the Assads stop by A Prairie Home Companion live in NY ... Christina Courtin plays NY's Rockwood Music Hall ... Philip Glass is solo in Istanbul ... Emmylou Harris supports Epilepsy Foundation in Nashville ... Kronos reunites with Joan Jeanrenaud in Berkeley ... Brad Mehldau joins Haden, Konitz, Motian at Birdland ... Joshua Redman plays with James Farm in Philly ... Sara Watkins joins Grant Lee Phillips in LA ... and more ...

BlakRoc, the album that brought together The Black Keys, Damon Dash, and a star-studded lineup of hip-hop MCs, is now available digitally at nonesuch.com for fans in the US and Canada at the same audiophile-quality 320kbps MP3s available throughout the site. The A.V. Club gives the album an A, saying it "defeats all odds by sounding both organic and cohesive." The Houston Chronicle gives it four stars, calling it "a sinewy masterpiece."

Wilco's latest Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album), has been named Album of the Year by the Independent, which has an exclusive interview with Jeff Tweedy as well. In a year that has been "a fine year for albums," the paper's Andy Gill calls Wilco's newest "an extraordinary achievement." Also on his list of favorites is Oh My God, Charlie Darwin from The Low Anthem, "this year's most intriguing new Americana-indie offshoot." The Boston Herald concurs, placing both albums on its Top 10 of 2009.

Kronos Quartet's latest Nonesuch release, Floodplain, has been named one of the Ten Best Albums of 2009 by Songlines. "There are few musicians on earth that encompass a range of music like Kronos," says Songlines, praising its "mastery of classical string playing" and "engagement with traditional sounds and contemporary geo-politics." The group reunites with its former cellist, Joan Jeanrenaud, in concert at UC Berkeley this Sunday.

Composer Elliott Carter turns 101 today. Earlier this year, as part of the composer's centennial celebration, Nonesuch Records released Elliott Carter: A Nonesuch Retrospective, featuring most of Carter's Nonesuch recordings from 1968 to 1985. The four-disc set The Observer called "covetable and historic" is now 33 1/3% off the standard list price at nonesuch.com as part of the Nonesuch Store Anniversary Sale.

Orchestrion, the forthcoming album from guitarist Pat Metheny, is due out on Nonesuch early next year, but you don't have to wait till then to hear music from the record. Pat Metheny Radio, available on patmetheny.com, is offering fans an exclusive first-listen excerpt, now through December 14. You can also pre-order the album with a limited-edition 9" x 12" print signed by Pat only at nonesuch.com.

Q2, the new 24/7 music stream from New York public radio's WQXR dedicated to contemporary classical music, kicks off its first full festival, Maximum Reich: A Celebration of Steve Reich, today. This weeklong immersion into Reich's work will include a presentation of his recorded works, explorations of the influences both on and of Reich, recent videos and exclusive downloads, and interviews and music recordings from the archives of WNYC, the new owner of WQXR.

Rolling Stone has announced its 100 Best Albums of the Decade, and five Nonesuch releases have made the list, including two albums from Wilco and one each from The Black Keys, Amadou & Mariam, and Brian Wilson. Wilco is also on the magazine's list of the decade's Top 100 Songs, for "Jesus, Etc.," joined by Randy Newman, for his Harps and Angels track "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country." OMM includes the Amadou & Mariam album and Ali Farka Touré's Savane on its list of the decade's Top 50.

The Times (UK) weighed in on the decade's best music late last month, including Nonesuch albums in each of four categories. Now, the Sunday Times  offers its list of the best albums of 2009, and Nonesuch artists are one again represented across genres: Wilco for Wilco (the album) in rock/pop, Kronos Quartet's Floodplain in world, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi in jazz. SPIN includes Wilco (the album) and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali on its own list of the year's best.

Pat Metheny once again explores new territory with his forthcoming project, Orchestrion, a “solo” recording that pairs the composer-guitarist with a phalanx of remarkable, custom-made instruments played via solenoid switches and pneumatics. Following the album’s January 26 Nonesuch release, Metheny will embark on an extensive solo tour. A limited-edition, signed 9"x12" print of the cover image is available now with CD or LP pre-orders, exclusively in the Nonesuch Store, to the first 500 customers.

The LA Phil's West Coast, Left Coast festival concludes tonight, after more than two weeks of performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall, with a celebration of the Beat poets featuring Joshua Redman, among others. The Los Angeles Times praised Kronos's "enthusiastic" Friday performance and the LA Phil's Sunday performance of Adams's "ecstatic" Dharma at Big Sur, led by the composer, in which Leila Josefowicz "played brilliantly ... rising to heights of rapture."

Brad Mehldau begins a five-night residency at New York's Birdland tonight with a quartet the New York Times calls an "all-star package"—Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, and Charlie Haden—to celebrate the venue's 60th anniversary. In January, Brad returns to New York to perform two solo sets at the Highline Ballroom to benefit JazzReach, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, performance, creation, and teaching of jazz.