This long Presidents' Day weekend in the US, Punch Brothers close out their winter US tour with three performances in New England this weekend, playing both ends of Massachusetts, at the Calvin Theater in Northampton tonight and the House of Blues in Boston on Saturday, and rounding out the tour with a Sunday night show at Port City Music Hall in Portland, Maine. Anaïs Mitchell opens all three shows as she has throughout the tour.

This weekend's shows mark the end of the band's touring for the year as they focus on writing their next record and explore some side ventures, such as Chris Thile's April tour with fellow Nonesuch artist Brad Mehldau. Punch Brothers will also play a few festival dates throughout the summer, including Spoleto, Telluride, and ROMP.

The Washington City Paper, previewing their recent two-night run at the 9:30 Club, calls their latest work "the perfect combination of rock sensibility, Baroque counterpoint, and bluegrass technique."

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Composer John Adams, who celebrates a birthday today, is in St. Louis for two performances of his piece City Noir by the St. Louis Symphony led by conductor David Robertson at Powell Hall, this morning and Saturday night. Nonesuch will record the performances for future release. Also on the concert program this weekend is Copland's Our Town and Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, "The Age of Anxiety." Saturday's performance will be broadcast live as part of the regular STL Symphony broadcast series on St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7-KWMU and streamed live at stlpublicradio.org. 

In Mannheim, Germany, Adams's Chamber Symphony will be among the pieces featured in choreographer Kevin O'Day's ballet based on Shakespeare's Othello, which receives its premiere at the National Theater Mannheim Saturday night. O'Day, the Mannheim ballet's director, has previously created works based on Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeon and Juliet.

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Brazilian-born brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad perform two afternoon shows for the 7 Days of Opening Nights Festival in Tallahassee, Florida: at the Pebble Hill Plantation on Saturday and the Opperman Music Hall on Sunday. They will be playing an all-French program titled La Belle Vie!, which features music by Lully, Rousseau, and Debussy, arranged for duo guitar.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops are part of the 7 Days of Opening Nights Festival music-making as well, performing at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee on Saturday. It's a return to the festival for the group members, whom the 7 Days organizers describe as "the sensations" of last year's event. It's also part of a weekend-long Florida leg of the Chocolate Drops' tour, with shows at Ferguson Hall at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa on Friday and the Ponte Vedra Music Hall in Ponte Vedra on Sunday.

The group is the subject of a feature profile in the Florida Times-Union in advance of Sunday's show; you can read the article at jacksonville.com.

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Shawn Colvin performs at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, tonight, before heading east to New York City for a special performance at The Cutting Room for Eco Rock, a benefit for the Rainforest Action Network. The event, hosted by Chris Noth and Whoopie Goldberg, supports RAN's efforts to defend endangered forests, promote human rights, and fight climate change.

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Brad Mehldau and fellow pianist and longtime friend Kevin Hays continue the European duo tour they launched last night in Manchester, England, with performances at the Konzerthaus in Vienna tonight and Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb on Saturday. Friends and colleagues since they both arrived on the New York jazz scene in the late '80s, they recently collaborated with composer Patrick Zimmerli on the 2011 Nonesuch album Modern Music.

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Natalie Merchant joins the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance at Buffalo's Kleinhans Music Hall on Saturday. The shows features classic standards and selections from Merchant's Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep.