Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, and T Bone Burnett are among the participants at the ninth-annual Americana Music Festival & Conference, getting under way today in Nashville. A highlight of the four-day affair is tomorrow night's Americana Honors & Awards ceremony at Ryman Auditorium, at which Thile, nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year, is scheduled to appear with Edgar Meyer, his partner on a debut duo album and DVD due out on Nonesuch next week. Burnett will participate in the keynote event of the festival's closing day, Saturday.

The Glass Box, Nonesuch Records' 10-CD collection of works by Philip Glass, is due out at the end of the month and is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. Yesterday on BBC Radio 3, In Tune featured a discussion with Glass plus three excerpts from works in the box, including the seminal Einstein on the Beach. Lincoln Center has announced that its 50th anniversary season, 2009–10, will include a production of Einstein on the Beach by the New York City Opera in its newly renovated New York State Theater.

Dawn Upshaw joins the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas tonight for the premiere of an all-Bernstein program that will make its way to Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala next week. On the program tonight at Davies Symphony Hall and continuing there Thursday and Friday nights are Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Scenes from A Quiet Place, Meditation No. 1 from Mass, Danzón from Fancy Free, and songs from West Side Story, On the Town, Songfest, and Trouble in Tahiti, some of which were featured on the 1996 Nonesuch release Leonard Bernstein's New York.

The kora—the 21-string West African harp—is the focus of tonight's episode of New Sounds on WNYC, New York public radio. Toumani Diabaté, whose solo kora record, The Mandé Variations, was released earlier this year, and who was recently described by the Boston Globe as "the uncontested master" of the instrument, will be among the featured artists on the show, as will Philip Glass, for his work with Gambian musician Foday Musa Suso.

Sam Phillips is on the road with songs from her latest release, Don't Do Anything, as well as past favorites. The BBC says Sam makes "smokey, sassy, sultry, smart-as-a-whip" music, and the new album is "an album to get deliriously lost within." All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen introduced last night's live NPR.org concert broadcast from the tour by calling her songs "miniature pop jewels." The Albany Times Union, reviewing the previous show, says Sam's vocals make "her probing, intelligent lyrics and her vibrant melodies all the more powerful." Previewing tonight's show, the Philadelphia Inquirer describes Sam's sound as "a sophisticated confluence of Kurt Weill, Tom Waits and late-period Marianne Faithfull, without any florid excesses."

Congratulations to Sérgio and Odair Assad, whose most recent Nonesuch release, Jardim Abandonado has just been nominated for two Latin Grammy awards: Best Classical Album and Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Sérgio's "Tahhiyya li ossoulina." The ninth annual Latin Grammy Award ceremony will be broadcast live from Houston's Toyota Center, November 13, on the Univision network.

Laurie Anderson's Homeland returned to the States with a performance at the Lied Center on the Kansas University, Lawrence. The Lawrence Journal-World & News says it was "an extraordinary concert ... of hard-hitting cultural and political commentaries." Anderson offered these insights "with wit as well as with a broad and penetrating sense of wisdom," providing "an open-ended common ground upon which to construct a perhaps more thoughtful political discourse ..."

Emmylou Harris closed out the UK leg of her European tour this past weekend with stops in Manchester and London. Saturday's performance at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall led the Manchester Evening News to write: "Legend is a term hastily applied in these latter days of talent show revivalism. Emmylou Harris has quietly earned the right to bear the title ... Her clear voice has lost none of its beguiling power—varying from whisper to country power yodel." Following her London show at the Hammersmith Apollo, The Times (UK) described her as "a regal presence" who "sang like an angel."

Randy Newman's tune "A Piece of the Pie," from Harps and Angels, has made its way onto the Boston Globe's list of "The 1 Thing You Must Do, See, or Hear This Week" as "The 1 Great Election-Season Lyric." Calling the record "savagely patriotic," the paper states: "We could go on and on about Randy Newman's rapier wit, but his words speak for themselves." Randy hits the road this week, with a free in-store performance at New York's Apple Store SoHo and a show at Carnegie Hall. The New Yorker calls the new album "a welcome, witty throwback to the days when his songs were snide, ironic, edgy, controversial, and, oh yeah, really funny."

Bill Frisell played the closing sets last night in his two-week residency at New York's Village Vanguard, with Paul Motion and Joe Lovano. This week, Bill heads to Pennsylvania for two shows with Tony Scherr and Rudy Royston. All About Jazz reviews History, Mystery, the latest release from this master of the "haunting, twang-inflected telecaster," comparing to Miles Davis his ability to take the familiar in ever new directions. One reason: "his brilliant orchestrations and ability to streamline what could be an unwieldy ensemble."

Philip Glass is featured in The Independent on Sunday with a preview of his forthcoming Nonesuch retrospective, the 10-CD Glass Box. Glass gives insight into a few of his most renowned collaborations, including his groundbreaking 1976 work with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach, and his score to Martin Scorsese's Kundun, both featured on The Glass Box; as well as his work with artists like Doris Lessing, David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Leonard Cohen.

Wordless Music presents an all–Steve Reich program over two nights in New York ... John Adams's Two Fanfares for Orchestra is performed in Singapore ... Laurie Anderson's Homeland heads South ... Bill Frisell finishes two-week residency at New York's Village Vanguard with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano ... Philip Glass and his Ensemble unveil a new work at the World Expo's closing ceremonies in Spain ... Emmylou Harris closes out the British leg of her tour ... Kronos Quartet and Wu Man perform Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic in its entirety at the Phoenix Symphony's World Music Festival ... Nicholas Payton performs at the Tudo É Jazz Festival in Brazil ... Sam Phillips hits Pittsburgh and Boston, with an in-store for Newbury Comics' 30th anniversary ... Punch Brothers play Texas ... Joshua Redman Quartet performs at the Jazz à la Villette festival in France ... Dawn Upshaw joins the Colorado Symphony Orchestra for its Opening Weekend Celebration ... Wilco's Nels Cline celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Fender Jazzmaster in an all-star concert at New York's Knitting Factory ... and more ...