As the July 4 holiday weekend gets under way in the United States, the 2014 High Sierra Music Festival celebrates the holiday weekend with four days of performances at the Plumas Sierra Fairgrounds in Quincy, California, located in the northeastern part of the state, where the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges meet. The festival gets under way today and continues through Sunday, featuring sets from a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and Bombino.

Carolina Chocolate Drops kick things off among the three with an Independence Day performance on the main Grandstand Stage Friday evening. The band, which performs a sold-out show at the Napa Valley Opera House’s City Winery in Napa tonight, heads to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on Sunday for a double bill with The Del McCoury Band. The Drops continue their months-long summer tour out West with stops in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Colorado in the weeks ahead.

Directly following the Chocolate Drops’ High Sierra set, Punch Brothers take the stage for the penultimate set of the night (followed only by Ms. Lauryn Hill). They head down the Golden State to the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at Lincoln Theater in Yountville on Saturday before rounding out their current run of shows at the Deer Valley Resort’s Snow Park Amphitheater in Park City, Utah, on Sunday, as part of the St. Regis Big Stars, Bright Nights concerts series.

Bombino brings the music of his Nonesuch album, Nomad, to the High Sierra Festival’s Big Meadow Stage on Saturday afternoon. This is bookended by festival sets in two more US states: the Waterfront Blues Festival at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon, tonight, and Summerfest at the Henry Maier Festival Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Sunday. The Tuareg guitarist rounds out his North American tour with two festival sets in Canada this week.

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Sam Amidon brings the music of his Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South, and more to the farm of Melanes in the West Fjords region of Rauðasandur, Iceland, tonight, as part of the Rauðasandur Festival.

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The Black Keys continue the first leg of the Turn Blue world tour on the main stages at Citadelle d’Arras in Arras, France, on Friday, for the Mainsquare Festival, and Festivalpark in Werchter, Belgium, on Saturday, as part of Rock Werchter. The Keys return to France to close out the entire Eurockéennes festival with a late-night set on the main Grande Scène Stage in Belfort on Sunday. The European summer festival dates continue through the end of July, and an extensive tour of North America begins this fall.

Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters, who close out the night at the Cognac Blues Passion festival at Blues Paradise in Cognac, France, on Saturday, head to the other side of the country to perform on the same Grande Scène Stage at the Eurockéennes festival on Sunday, directly preceding The Black Keys. Plant and his band head next to Switzerland in the week ahead.

The Black Keys and Robert Plant both took the Glastonbury Festival’s main Pyramid Stage last weekend, each earning four stars from the Guardian. You can watch the Glastonbury performances of The Black Keys’ “Fever,” off of Turn Blue, here, and Plant’s “Little Maggie,” off his forthcoming album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, here, via the BBC's live coverage of the festival.

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Giving an encore performance of another Glastonbury program from last weekend, Jonny Greenwood gives a solo guitar performance of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester tonight. It’s part of an all-Reich program with the London Sinfonietta and Synergy Vocals, which also includes Clapping Music and Music for 18 Musicians.

The guitarist/composer recently spoke to the Times of London for an article titled “Jonny Greenwood: Why the Future Is Classical,” which notes that the “over-modest Radiohead guitarist is carving out a parallel role as a composer of contemporary classical music.” Greenwood says: “Live classical music feels very modern to me for some reason, even though the instruments are old. Almost all of the musicians I meet are utterly without ego, and yet they’re so skilled and have devoted so much of their lives to sounding the way they do.”

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Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra close out the XI Kremerata Baltica festival in Latvia this weekend. This year’s festival, titled “Riga’s Stars,” kicked off last night in their hometown of Riga (this year’s European Capital of Culture) and continues through Sunday. Led by conductor Jacques Cohen, Kremer and the orchestra perform a concert called “Žanis and Johanna. Love” at the Lielā Ģilde concert hall in Riga tonight. On the program is the Latvian premiere of Arturs Maskats’ “Midnight in Riga,” Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (“The American Four Seasons”), and Weinberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op. 147.

On Saturday, Kremer and his orchestra take their festival to Baltais Flīģelis concert hall in Sigulda for a program titled “Masters and Master Works”: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition bookended by Mozart’s overture to the Abduction from the Seraglio and his Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Major, featuring pianist Lauma Skride. The festival closes out at Baltais Flīģelis on Sunday, with a program entitled “Time for Schubert: Love and Loneliness.” The evening features works by Schubert, Darzins, George Pelecis, and Efrem Podgaits, and Lativan musicians Baiba Skride, Ksenija Sidorova, Daniil Bulajev.

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Brad Mehldau and drummer Mark Guiliana take their electric duo, Mehliana, to Esplanade de La Défense in Puteaux, France, on Saturday, and Castello di Udine in Udine, Italy, on Sunday. In support of their debut album, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, released earlier this year on Nonesuch Records, Mehldau and Guiliana continue their three-week tour in Italy, Turkey, France, and the Netherlands in the days ahead.

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Natalie Merchant kicks off a three-week tour of the United States close to home at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, New York, tonight, followed by performances at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on Saturday, and the Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Sunday. The tour, which features selections from her recently released self-titled album and favorite songs from throughout her career, continues with dates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, in the week ahead.

“The collective feel of the music on the album still leaves room for Merchant’s trademark intimacy and honesty: no small feat,” writes the Hudson Valley Almanac Weekly in advance of tonight’s show. “Expect similar wire-walking brilliance when Merchant takes the show on the road.”

Merchant spoke about her new album on public radio’s The Diane Rehm Show yesterday and on CBC’s Q with Gian Ghomeshi this morning.

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Conor Oberst rounds out the current leg of his US tour with an all-ages show at The Bottleneck in Lawrence, Kansas, tonight, with special guests Dawes, and a headline set at the 80/35 Music Festival in Western Gateway Park in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday. Oberst and Dawes head across the Atlantic to kick off a European tour at Cathedral in Manchester, England, on Tuesday.

While on tour, Oberstand members of Dawes stopped by the NPR offices in Washington, DC, to perform a Tiny Desk Concert of songs from his new album, Upside Down Mountain. “Conor Oberst's new album has fast become my favorite of the Bright Eyes singer's solo projects,” says host Bob Boilen, “so having him come to NPR and perform a few of these songs at the Tiny Desk was especially exciting. The new music on Upside Down Mountain contains the sort of personal songwriting that got me loving him in the first place.” You can watch the set here.

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Joshua Redman Quartet—Aaron Goldberg on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums—continues its European tour with festival sets at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Kongsberg, Norway, tonight, and the Charlie Jazz Festival at Domaine de Fontblanche in Vitrolles, France, on Sunday.

The Guardian calls Redman’s new Nonesuch album, Trios Live, a “sax fan's dream of a live set,” giving it four stars. The Financial Times, in its four-star review, says: “It's a great set, full of muscular rhythms and the abandon of live performance, yet as tightly argued as a rigorous studio date.”