Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter Omara “Bombino” Moctar launched a month-long European tour earlier this week celebrating last week’s release of his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad. Bombino and his band made their way to the Netherlands for a performance in Nijmegen last night and remain in the country through the weekend for concerts at the Melkweg Oude Zaal in Amsterdam tonight, Paard in Den Hague on Saturday, and Tivoli De Helling in Utrecht on Sunday.

The European tour continues into early May with dates in France, England, Norway, Spain, and Belgium. Bombino then comes to the United States for a tour that includes headline dates and festival sets, including Sasquatch!, Wakarusa, and Bonnaroo.

The music video for “Azamane Tiliade,” off of Nomad, premiered via Rolling Stone earlier this week. For the album, Bombino and producer Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys "recorded raw, dialed-up jams rooted in the electric-blues tradition of Bombino’s nomadic, desert-dwelling Tuareg people," says Rolling Stone, which calls the song a "proggy, groove-heavy track." Watch the video here.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops take their months-long US spring tour to New England this weekend for a performance at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton, Massachusetts, on Saturday and the first of two consecutive nights at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine, on Sunday.

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Jeremy Denk performs a solo piano recital at the Soka Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo, California, on Sunday afternoon. On the program are Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, which he performs on his 2012 Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, as well as works by Bartók, Liszt, and Bach.

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Fatoumata Diawara continues her rare US tour with two shows this weekend: at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis tonight, which comes reommended on the Minneapolis Public Radio show State of the Arts, and Outpost in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Sunday.

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Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are the guests on NPR's World Cafe today as part of the show's Sense of Place: Nashville feature. The two talk with host David Dye about their new duo album, Old Yellow Moon, and perform a few acoustic takes of songs from the record. Tune in on public radio stations across the country and online at xpn.org.

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Lianne La Havas, following her two-night run in New York City, performing to sold-out crowds in Manhattan and Brooklyn, brings her 19-city North American spring tour to a close with sold-out shows at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, tonight and The Loft in Atlantaon Saturday, and a final Stateside set at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville on Sunday.

The NPR Morning Edition profile of Lianne La Havas that first aired around the release of her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, on Nonesuch last year, titled “The Golden Girl of British Music,” returned to NPR last week for an encore presentation on Weekend Edition Sunday. You can hear the story at npr.org.

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Iron and Wine plays a free concert for Oklahoma University students on the East Lawn of the Memorial Union in Norman, Oklahoma, on Saturday. Sam Beam and his band will preview songs from their upcoming Nonesuch debut album, Ghost on Ghost, set for release this Tuesday. 

NPR Music has premiered the video for the Ghost on Ghost track "Joy," which you can watch at npr.org. NPR is also streaming the complete album as an exclusive First Listen till release day at npr.org.

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Natalie Merchant joins the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Andrés Franco for a a three-night run at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, tonight. The performance feature favorite songs from throughout Merchant’s career, including selections from her Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep.

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Steve Reich joins So Percussion for a performance of his Clapping Music at Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall on Sunday as part of the MusicNOW Festival, founded by Bryce Dessner of The Natioanl. Also on the program are Reich’s Pieces of Wood and Mallet Quartet and the premiere of a new work by Daníel Bjarnason, commissioned by the festival.

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Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau continue their US duo tour with three performances on the East Coast this weekend: a sold-out show at the Gildhenhorn Recital Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland, tonight, followed by concerts at both ends of Massachusetts, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington on Saturday and the Berklee Performance Center in Boston on Sunday. Their repertoire includes favorite classical transcriptions, pop covers, and original songs.

"Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau come from different worlds but the same species, and whatever feels unlikely about their pairing is eclipsed by what feels perfectly natural," wrote the New York Times' Nate Chinen in his review of the tour-opening show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom earlier this week. "At every turn, whatever the song, both musicians played with alert intelligence and deep sensitivity ..."

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Rokia Traoré celebrates this week’s European release of her critically acclaimed new album, Beautiful Africa with a European tour that takes Traoré and her band to La Ferme du Buisson in Noisiel, France, tonight and Chapiteau in Cully, Switzerland, on Saturday, as part of the Cully Jazz Festival. The tour includes three nights at le Petit Bain in Paris next week and stops at a number of European festivals, like Roskilde, Glastonbury, and WOMAD. Beautiful Africa is set for a US release later this year.

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Dawn Upshaw concludes her four-day residency at SUNY Fredonia School of Music with a culminating recital performance at Rosch Recital Hall in Fredonia, New York, on Saturday, accompanied by frequent collaborator Gilbert Kalish. Following a multitude of master classes, workshops, and interviews, the final concert will feature pieces by Ives, Schubert, Bartók, and Ravel, in addition to cabaret songs by William Bolcom and a world premiere by composer Sheila Silver. There's a feature on the event in the Erie Times-News at goerie.com.