Caetano Veloso's all-too-brief tour of the United States began last night at New York's Terminal 5. "The majority of the set was full of lively rhythms and heavy electric lead guitar," Pop Matters reviewer Thomas Hauner reports from last night's show. "But it’s Veloso’s clean and clear voice that is the real attraction. Like Sinatra’s, it beguiles with its apparent simplicity but seduces with its malleable, crystal tone." Read the complete review and see a number of photos from the show at popmatters.com. There are additional photos at brooklynvegan.com.

The tour continues Saturday night at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC, where Veloso and his band perform one night ahead of label mate Rokia Traoré.

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Laurie Anderson continues a four-night run of her new performance piece, Delusion, at the Uppsala Stadsteater in Sweden, which began Wednesday night, with additional performances tonight and Saturday.

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Carnegie Hall begins more than a week's worth of concert curated by Louis Andriessen, the holder of the Hall's 2009-2010 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair. The events begin tonight, fittingly enough, with the New York premiere of Andriessen's Symphony for Open Strings paired with three world premieres by young American composers who have been influenced by Andriessen, Missy Mazzoli, Michael Fiday, and John Korsrud. The program will be performed by American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie's Zankel Hall.

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Famed Brazilian-born guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad explore their Lebanese roots in a series of live performances titled De Volta as Raizes (Back to our Roots) that began at Northwestern University last tonight. The performances, also featuring pianist/singer/composer Clarice Assad, percussionist Jamey Haddad, and Lebanese singer Christiane Karam, continue this weekend at the Coronado Performing Arts Center in Rockford, Illinois, tonight, and the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Sunday.

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The Black Keys kicked off a run of performances this month with a show at the University of Iowa's Memorial Union Main Lounge last night. On Saturday, the guys will headline the big Yuri's Night Bay Area festival at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Also on the bill are Common, Les Claypool, N.E.R.D., and many others. It remains unclear whether video star Frank, the hardest working puppet dinosaur in show business, will make a guest appearance as well, but he is making waves on his own Facebook page and Twitter feed.

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Bill Frisell began a four-night residency at Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland, California, last night and will play two sets each weekend night. For the occasion, Frisell welcomes different special guests each night with four different bands. Tonight, the Bill Frisell Trio, featuring Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen take on the films of Buster Keaton, Jim Woodring, and Bill Morrison. Tomorrow night, it's the Quintet, featuring Jenny Scheinman, Greg Leisz, Tony Scherr, and Wollesen performing the music of John Lennon. And, to close out the residency, Wollesen returns again, along with pianist Jason Moran, for a trio of a different sort. For more information on all of these events, visit yoshis.com.

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Richard Goode performs pieces from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, three Haydn sonatas, and Schumann's Kreisleriana at the Seligman Performing Arts Center in Beverly Hills, Michigan, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. Goode will give a lecture/demonstration on the Haydn sonatas at the piano prior to the concert. Goode's performance of the program in Middlebury, Vermont, last weekend, "was deeply musical and satisfying," says the Rutland Herald, "as was the entire program."

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Kronos Quartet began a three-day residency at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, last night and will give its culminating concert, featuring works by Ben Johnston, John Zorn, and Terry Riley, and the world premiere of Maria Schneider's First String Quartet, at the school's Page Auditorium, Saturday night. Other residency events with Kronos and Schneider include public conversations, class visits, open rehearsals, and a listening session.

On Sunday, the Quartet heads to University of North Carolina in Wilmington to perform at Kenan Auditorium, presented by Chamber Music Williamsburg. Included on the program is music from Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream, and works by Bryce Dessner, Sigur Rós, Ramallah Underground, and Aleksandra Vrebalov.

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The Low Anthem has headed above the 49th Parallel for a few shows in Canada. On Saturday night, the quartet plays the Church of the Redeemer in Toronto with The Barr Brothers, of The Slip, opening. The Montreal Gazette has a profile of the band in a preview of Monday night's show at Gesù: Centre de Créativité in Montreal. Time Out Chicago made the band's show at Lincoln Hall earlier this week its Top Live Show.

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The Brad Mehldau Trio is also in Toronto Saturday night, performing at Massey Hall. On Sunday, the Trio heads to Kingston, Ontario, to perform at the Grand Theatre's Regina Rosen Auditorium.

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Pat Metheny began the US leg of his Orchestrion world tour earlier this week and spread the music around Florida all weekend, with concerts at Ruth Echerd Hall in Clearwater tonight, The Fillmore in Miami Beach on Saturday, and the Phillips Center in Gainesville on Sunday. The St. Petersburg Times has an interview with Metheny, and the Gainesville
Sun previews Sunday's show with a profile of the guitarist/composer and a look at Orchestrion, his latest Nonesuch release.

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Punch Brothers kicked off several months of performances Wednesday night at Indiana University. "The inside of the IU Auditorium was thunderous Wednesday," reports the Indiana Daily Student. "Thunderous in the applause, thunderous in the instrumentals and thunderous in the pounding drive of Chris Thile’s mandolin." The band performs at the Hamilton Performing Arts Center in Hamilton, Montana, on Saturday.

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Joshua Redman plays two nights at Voila in Mexico City, tonight and Saturday, with bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Bill Stewart.

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Allen Toussaint has added another feather in his cap, as he joins the array of famed New Orleans' musicians to appear on Treme, the new HBO show from David Simon, the creator of The Wire. This weekend, he's on the road, performing at the YMCA Boulton Center in Bay Shore, New York, tonight, and at the Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, Saturday. Previewing the latter, the region's Montgomery News calls him "a true musical treasure." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Steve Klinge says that Toussaint's "wonderful" Nonesuch debut album, The Bright Mississippi, "was the Allen Toussaint album some of us had waited for: a mostly instrumental set of piano blues, with Toussaint fronting a crack band and giving a lesson in the history of jazz."

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As reported earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Rokia Traoré begins a spring tour of the US and UK at North Carolina State University's Stewart Theatre in Raleigh. From there, she heads up to Washington, DC, for a Sunday set at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium.

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Wilco concludes its fully sold-tour US tour, billed as An Evening with Wilco, with a concert each weekend night, beginning with a Friday night set at Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford, followed by a Saturday show at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia and a Sunday night tour closer at Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh.