Saturday is Record Store Day! Nonesuch Records will make a series of special releases available then in honor of the fifth annual celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Among the artists releasing albums and singles are The Black Keys, Dr. John, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Sara Watkins, and Carolina Chocolate Drops. Check back with the Nonesuch Journal tomorrow for details on all of these special releases.

Also on Saturday, Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys join Garrison Keillor and the cast and crew of A Prairie Home Companion for a live broadcast performance from the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The show's fellow guests include Sam Bush and Stuart Duncan, as well as a return engagement from vocalists Aoife O'Donovan and Heather Masse, who were featured on last week's episode with the Punch Brothers. Tune in on your local public radio station and online at priariehome.org.

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Laurie Anderson helps kick off Sensoria, the UK festival of film, music, and digital media, with a special pre-festival Artist Talk at the Upper Chapel in Sheffield, England, tonight. For the festival's Opening Night, Anderson gives the UK premiere of her new work, Another Day in America (aka Dirtday!), at Sheffield City Hall Saturday night. Anderson then heads to Wroclaw, Poland, for a poetry reading at Studio na Grobli on Sunday.

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The Black Keys return to headline the Coachella festival tonight, following their successful Coachella headlining debut last Friday night at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. “The production was bigger, with colorful graphics flashing on the huge screens around them,” says Rolling Stone of last week’s performance, “but the music remained rooted in the band's commitment to jagged rock and blues.”

After playing Coachella, the band has another festival headlining slot ahead, with a closing main-stage performance at Edgefest at the FC Dallas Stadium Sunday night.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops celebrate Johnny Cash’s 80th birthday in a special concert at The Moody Theater in Austin tonight. Other performers include Cash’s fellow Highwaymen Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, and Ronnie Dunn. Backing tonight’s performers is an all-star band led by Don Was, which features musicians Kenny Aronoff, Greg Leisz, and Buddy Miller, who produced Carolina Chocolate Drops’ new album, Leaving Eden, and Shawn Colvin's forthcoming album, All Fall Down.

“We won’t be imitating the Johnny Cash records,” Was tells Austin360.com. “We’re leaving it open to each person to find their own truth in these songs.”

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Jeremy Denk joins the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for a performance at the SPCO Center's Music Room in Saint Paul, Minnesota, tonight and Sunday. The program features works by Elgar, Wolf, Prokofiev, Brahms, and Dvořák. Denk's Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, is due out on May 15.

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Richard Goode gives a recital at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA)’s Watson Hall in Winston-Salem on Saturday. The recital, a benefit concert to support the School of Music, features works by Chopin and Schumann. The school’s music dean, Wade Weast, recently expressed his praise of Goode to the Winston-Salem Journal, explaining that Goode has “a unique ability to transcend the technical aspects of playing the piano in a way that makes the performance very personal and meaningful.” The article continues with Goode’s own comments on the night's program, which demonstrates the different ways Chopin and Schumann approached the piano. He remains on campus through Sunday, when he offers a free master class to selected UNCSA piano students, then returns home to New York City to perform Saturday's program at Carnegie Hall.

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Wanda Jackson is in the Pacific Northwest, performing at Neumos in Seattle tonight and Roseland Theater in Portland on Saturday.

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Kronos Quartet performs a special Earth Day concert at the Gualala Arts Center in Gualala, California, on Saturday as part of the Gualala Arts Global Harmony Series. The program includes works by Bryce Dessner, Nicole Lizée, and Terry Riley.

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Cheikh Lô continues his North American tour, featuring music from his latest album, Jamm, with a performance in New York City tonight in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. He then takes the tour north of the 49th parallel for a show at Le Cabaret du Mile End in Montreal on Saturday.

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As noted earlier in the Nonesuch Journal, Jessica Lea Mayfield kicks off her tour of the American South with a performance at John Black Studio in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Saturday as part of the Rhythm 'n' Blooms festival.

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Audra McDonald takes time out from her regular gig, starring as Bess in the Broadway production of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, for a one-night-only performance with the New Jersey Symphony Chamber Orchestra at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Prudential Hall in Newark tonight. The show features favorite tunes from Broadway and Hollywood. McDonald spoke with the Bergen Record in advance of tonight's concert to give a preview of tonight’s show and discuss her role as Bess in Porgy and Bess. You can read the interview at northjersey.com.

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Punch Brothers continue their North American tour with support from Jesca Hoop, playing at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville tonight. They take the stage at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta on Saturday before returning to Tennessee to perform at Track 29 in Chattanooga.

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The Joshua Redman Trio, featuring Matt Penman on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums, concludes its week-long residency at the Village Vanguard in New York City with multiple performances through Sunday. It’s the first time Redman has headlined at the Vanguard since 2008. “My concept of playing trio is no different from my playing in any musical context,” Redman tells the New York Daily News, “which is to play as honestly and as creatively as possible.”

Redman joins Brad Mehldau for the conclusion of their duo next week. Time Out Chicago praised their recent show at Symphony Center, calling it "a peek into the musical universes of two virtuosos, whose collision produced something else even more wonderful.”

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Stephen Sondheim will speak with Mark Eden Horowitz, author of Sondheim on Music, at Symphony Space in New York on Saturday for the local premiere of Anthony de Mare’s Liaisons project Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano. De Mare performs Sondheim works re-imagined for solo piano by various composers, including many familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, like Steve Reich, William Bolcom, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Fred Hersch.

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Dawn Upshaw continues her tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra with a performance at the University of Florida’s Philips Center in Gainesville tonight. Upshaw and the Orchestra then head to Toronto to perform at the Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Concert Hall on Sunday. The tour features Maria Schneider’s newest composition, Winter Morning Walks, a blend of classical and jazz elements written for Upshaw.

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Sara Watkins continues her US tour, performing at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago tonight. She then gives a free Record Store Day in-store acoustic performance and signing at The Exclusive Company in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday before heading over to the High Noon Saloon to perform that night. Watkins closes out the weekend with a show at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on Sunday.