Conductor James Conlon leads the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a performance of John Adams's Nativity oratorio, El Niño, in the Opening Night concert of the three-week Edinburgh International Festival tonight. The sold-out concert will take place at Usher Hall and feature baritone Willard White and the countertenor group Theatre of Voices, both featured on the Nonesuch recording of the piece, as well as soprano Jessica Rivera, who is featured on the Nonesuch recording of Adams' A Flowering Tree, and mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor.

On Saturday, Maestro Marin Alsop leads the Cabrillo Music Festival orchestra in a performance of Adams's latest work, City Noir, at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California.

---

The Black Keys continue their North American tour this weekend playing two sold-out shows in the Midwest. They return to their home state of Ohio to perform at the LC Amphitheatre in Columbus tonight, and head next to The Fillmore in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday. Previewing the show at The Fillmore, the Detroit Free Press offers some welcoming words. "As adept at forging thick, foreboding blues as they are at crafting
slinky old-soul grooves," says staff writer Brian McCollum, "Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are longtime
Detroit favorites."

The Black Keys have been selling out shows across the US, and last weekend played to a crowd of 50,000 at Lollapalooza, a set that Time Out Chicago listed in the Top 5 of the entire festival. After this weekend, the band continues their tour of the Eastern United States.

---

Toumani Diabaté and his Symmetric Orchestra are in the United States for a brief tour, including a three-night residency at Yoshi’s in Oakland, California, this weekend. They remain out West for the remainder of the tour, with concerts in Santa Cruz, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, next week. The Chicago Reader, in a preview of last night's concert in Millenium Park, described Diabaté's latest World Circuit/Nonesuch release, Ali and Toumani, as "a stunning collaboration with Ali Farka Touré."

---

Philip Glass’ Cello Concerto will featured in the closing performances of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. The program will be performed twice at the Mission San Juan Bautista in Santa Cruz on Sunday, both featuring cellist Wendy Sutter. Previewing the performance, the Santa Cruz Sentinel describes Glass as “incomparable,” and the festival’s website says the Cello Concerto “creates a haunting, beautifully poignant, and almost baroque experience for the audience.”

---

After recent performances with his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra in Italy and Germany, Gidon Kremer appears tonight with Khatia Buniatishvili and Giedre Dirvanauskaite at Haus fur Mozart, in Salzburg, Austria.

---

This weekend marks the conclusion of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, which will feature Kronos Quartet at the Damrosch Park Bandshell in New York City tonight. As reported earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Kronos will perform with special guests Gamelan Galak Tika, led by Artistic Director Evan Ziporyn, and Kenge Kenge in a program featuring works of Steve Reich and Café Tacuba and the world premiere of Christine Southworth’s Super Collider. Kronos recently played at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, about which the Monterey Herald quipped: “Kronos Quartet steals the show.”

---

The Low Anthem kicked off a European tour that continues through mid-September. Tonight, the band performs at Loppen in Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by two festival appearances: Saturday at the Haldern Pop Festval in Germany, and Sunday at De Montfort Hall & Gardens in Leicester, England, as part of the Summer Sundae Weekender. 

---

Natalie Merchant’s US tour takes her to Southern California this weekend, as she and her eight-piece band perform at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles tonight and at the Spreckels Theatre in San Diego on Saturday. Previewing tonight’s performance, the LA Weekly described Merchant’s recent Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep, as "the most sonically adventurous project of her career." Earlier this week, Merchant announced a number of tour dates this fall at which she will be backed by full symphony orchestras. 

---

Following the vinyl release of Antifogmatic and the announcement of their fall tour earlier this week, Punch Brothers close out their August dates with two festival appearances. Tonight they are featured at the Targhee Bluegrass Festival in Alta, Wyoming, and on Sunday they play the Mile High Music Festival in Commerce City, just outside Denver, Colorado.  In a recent "Slobbering Rave" in Paste magazine, actor/comedian/banjoist Ed Helms called the band's music "an impossibly perfect mixture of down-home charm and staggering sophistication."

---

The Summer Love Tour, featuring Sara Watkins, Garrison Keillor, and the cast of A Praire Home Companion, continues this weekend, performing at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia, tonight; the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina, on Saturday; and Conner Prairie in Indianapolis on Sunday. The Grand Rapids Press, in its review of Wednesday night's show at the Meijer Gardens, described it as "a lesson in how pairing music with comedy can be a magical thing."

---

Wilco curates its inaugural Solid Sound Festival this weekend at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The Festival begins today and will continue through Sunday. The lineup features all of the band members’ side projects, including the Nels Cline Singers, Jeff Tweedy Solo Plus, The Autumn Defense (featuring John Stiratt and Pat Sansone), On Fillmore (featuring Glenn Kotche) and Pronto (featuring Mikael Jorgensen), as well as various other groups selected by the band. Wilco (the band) will perform Saturday night.  In a recent interview with the Boston Herald, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy said: “It’s really fun to present this exploded vision of the band under one umbrella for once.”