Today marks the start of a long weekend in the U.S., with Memorial Day coming on Monday. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are among the few Nonesuch artists on the road in the States this weekend, but were sure to keep Monday free. Before then, the trio performs at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, Maryland, tonight, followed shows at the very opposite ends of Massachusetts: at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), out west in North Adams, Saturday night, and at the eastern tip of the state for a show at the Payomet Performing Arts Center in North Truro, Cape Cod, on Sunday.

The Albany Times Union spoke with band member Dom Flemons about the upcoming MASS MoCA show and the band's Nonesuch debut album, Genuine Negro Jig. You'll find the Q&A at timesunion.com.

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As reported earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Vivid LIVE, the two-week festival of music, theater, and visual arts curated by Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in Sydney, Australia, kicked off last night with Lighting the Sails, a special lighting of the iconic Sydney Opera House sails featuring Anderson's art, which will take place each night for the duration of the festival and through June 20. This weekend's Vivid LIVE events include performances by Ricky Lee Jones, Japanese punk/metal band Boris, and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio, as well as the opening of New York Genius, free exhibition of black-and-white stills curated by Reed from the Magnum Photographic Archive.

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Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica perform two concert in Germany, at the Schloss Neuhardenberg's Schinkel Church, where they are artists in residence, in Neuhardenberg tonight and the Großer Saal of the Philharmonie in Berlin on Sunday. The program features pairings of the Vivaldi and Piazzolla Seasons as heard on the group's Nonesuch album Eight Seasons. On Monday, the ensemble begins a four-city tour of Russia at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

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Brad Mehldau will be joined by mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet's Main Auditorium in Oslo on Sunday. The first part of the program will include songs by August Söderman, Jean Sibelius, Gabriel Fauré, Johannes Brahms, and Richard Strauss; in the second part, the duo will perform Mehldau's Love Songs, which they premiered at Carnegie Hall last year. They return to Carnegie Hall next season during Mehldau's tenure as holder of the Debs Composers Chair there with the New York premiere of the expanded version of piece.

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Natalie Merchant continues her first tour of the UK in eight years with concerts at Birmingham Symphony Hall tonight, Colston Hall in Bristol on Saturday, and Brighton Dome on Sunday. The Guardian gave her recent performance at The Sage Gateshead a perfect five stars, calling it "an evening of the magical power of words and music" and asserting: "Merchant may be in her prime."

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Sara Watkins joins her brother Sean for a Watkins Family Hour set, headlining the Strawberry Jamboree Music Festival at the Moonlight Stage in Vista, California, on Sunday.

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Wilco brings its European tour to a close over the long weekend. Tonight, the band is at the Parc del Forum in Barcelona for the Primavera Sound Festival, with the last two shows of the tour in Italy: Sunday at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome and Monday at the sold-out Teatro Comunale in Ferrara.