Chris Thile performs his Mandolin Concerto with the Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Saturday night. Of mingling genres, Thile tells the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier: "I treat the idea with a certain amount of distrust. It's a little gladiator-ish for me, pitting the soloist against the orchestra. For me, it's more about the soloist and orchestra getting to know each other, more of a communal thing."

Thile returns to New York to perform a duo show with guitarist Michael Daves next week before hitting the road again for the next leg of the Punch Brothers' tour.

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John Adams leads a performance of his opera Nixon in China at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City Saturday night. The groundbreaking 1987 work received what the Associated Press calls its "long-overdue premiere" at the Met earlier this week. The AP describes Nixon in China as "perhaps the greatest American opera of the last quarter-century" and the Met production "a testament to its enduring power." The New York Times sees the premiere not as overdue but rather arriving "at just the right time to comprehend the continuing resonances of this audacious and moving opera." The Washington Post says the work has now taken its place as "a Modern Masterpiece."

Meanwhile, in Toronto, the Canadian Opera Company begins it own production of Nixon in China on Saturday, directed by James Robinson, with Pablo Heras-Casado conducting. The cast features Robert Orth as Richard Nixon, Maria Kanyova as Pat Nixon, Chen-Ye Yuan as Chou En-lai, Adrian Thompson as Mao Tse-tung, Marisol Montalvo as Madame Mao, and Thomas Hammons as Henry Kissinger. Performances run through February 26.

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David Byrne is at Castro Theatre in San Francisco Saturday night for the 25th anniversary screening of his acclaimed Talking Heads movie musical True Stories, as a part of the San Francisco Sketchfest. Back in 1986, film critic Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, described True Stories as “a bold attempt to paint a bizarre American landscape. This movie does what some painters try to do: It recasts ordinary images into strange new shapes.”

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The Carolina Chocolate Drops kicked off their 2011 tour schedule earlier this week and have two shows slated for this weekend. They will be performing at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill, New York, tonight, followed by a show at the Barre Opera House in Barre, Vermont, on Saturday.

Previewing last night's concert in Connecticut, band member Dom Flemons spoke with the Fairfield Weekly about their new EP, a collaboration with the New York gypsy punk band Luminescent Orchestrii. Flemons sees this unexpected pairing as an example of his group's aims to stay away from stereotypes while engaging in new sounds. "We try to make sure that the music that we do is relevant because it’s not supposed to be a museum piece,” he says. “It’s supposed to be a living organism of music projected out to the crowd.”

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Shawn Colvin performs two West Coast shows this weekend. She performs the second of two nights at Yoshi’s in San Francisco, where she recorded her 2009 Nonesuch album, Live, tonight, and is at the Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge on Saturday, the latter a double bill with Loudon Wainwright III.

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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Wanda Jackson kicks off her European tour this weekend with a headlining spot at the Rockin’ Race Jamboree in Málaga, Spain, late Saturday night. She'll hit the road with Chris Aron & Band in Germany next week.

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As noted earlier in the Nonesuch Journal, Kronos Quartet performs two nights at the Walker Art Center's McGuire Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, tonight and Saturday. The concerts were preceded by a free talk with the group's founder, violinist, and artistic director David Harrington, held at the theater last night. "It's hard to hype the Kronos Quartet," says the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "The group, pushing 40, really has transformed the face of chamber music; it still makes many younger rivals seem staid

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Jessica Lea Mayfield kicks off her tour with Justin Townes Earle with two concerts in the Northeast this weekend: at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tonight, and at Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday. There are just a few more days before Tuesday's release of Mayfield's Nonesuch debut album, Tell Me, and to pre-order the album in the Nonesuch Store with a signed 7” of the album’s first single, “Our Hearts Are Wrong.”

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Fernando Otero, along with his Electric Quartet, perform at Nublu in New York City on Saturday. New York public radio station WNYC has selected the show for its Gig Alert. "A quick listen to Otero’s own brand of new tango shows an unmistakable debt to Piazolla, but Otero takes the sound of the genre a step farther," says WNYC Culture Producer Marlon Bishop. Learn more and download the track “La Vista Gorda,” from Otero's 2008 Nonesuch album, Pagina de Buenos Aires, at wnyc.org.

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Steve Reich's seminal 1976 piece Music for 18 Musicians, will be performed by eighth blackbird in a sold-out concert at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago on Saturday, paired with a piece by Bach. The group performed Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Double Sextet on the first recording of the piece, out on Nonesuch last year.

Last weekend, Reich's 75th birthday year was kicked off with a five-day festival in Stockholm that opened with the composer performing his Clapping Music. A rather different take on the piece has popped up on YouTube, featuring Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin:

Allen Toussaint performs the third installment in his five-week series of Sunday noon concerts at Joe's Pub in New York City. "This New Orleans songwriter and producer has been composing songs of solidarity and faith since the 1960s," says the New York Times's Amanda Petrusich in a listing of the show, which is a Weekend Pick from NBC New York.

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Sara Watkins continues her tour with The Decemberists with three sold-out shows in the Midwest this Super Bowl weekend. They perform at Chicago's Riviera Theatre tonight; the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee on Saturday; and the State Theatre in Minneapolis on Sunday.