Bombino, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou & Mariam, Björk perform at Bonnaroo ... Amadou & Mariam, Bombino, Laurie Anderson give free performances at Luminato ... Alarm Will Sound kicks off Bang on a Can Marathon, previews Steve Reich's Radio Rewrite at the Guggenheim with the composer on hand ... Sam Amidon plays Philadelphia ... Carolina Chocolate Drops are in Virginia ... Jeremy Denk performs at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell kick off North American tour in Santa Fe ... Audra McDonald performs in the Berkshires ... Randy Newman celebrates film music in New Jersey ... and more ...
The 2013 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival got under way in Manchester, Tennessee, yesterday and continues through the weekend, including performances from a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Bombino, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou & Mariam, and Björk.
Bombino begins the final week of his current month-long North American tour with two performances at Bonnaroo today: at That Tent at 1:30 PM and again at 5:45 on the Sonic Stage. While in Tennessee, the Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter, who made his Nonesuch debut with the release of his Dan Auerbach-produced album Nomad in April, gave an intimate performance at Oak Valley Lanes in Nashville last night, featuring DJ sets from Auerbach.
Fatoumata Diawara, who kicked off her North American summer tour last night in New Hampshire, will follow Bombino in That Tent at 3 PM then head west to perform at the Oats Park Art Center in Fallon, Nevada, on Saturday before beginning a tour of California at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley on Sunday.
Amadou & Mariam, who released a new digital EP of remixes, Mali Meets Latin America, earlier this week, kick off their North American tour with a performance at Bonnaroo’s That Tent today at 4: 45 PM.
Björk takes the festival’s main stage on Saturday for the evening’s penultimate performance at 7 PM. Earlier this week, Björk completed a tour of California featuring the music of her latest album, Biophilia. She heads to Canada next month for performances in Ottawa and Toronto, following by a return to the States for the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.
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Amadou & Mariam and Bombino continue their North American tours in tandem as they head north of the 49th parallel for the Luminato Festival in Toronto on Sunday, performing back-to-back free concerts in David Pecault Square at the festival’s Hub that afternoon. Later that night, Laurie Anderson will give her own free set at the Hub. Label mates Carolina Chocolate Drops take the stage on Monday night.
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Alarm Will Sound has a full few days ahead with several special events in New York City, starting with a Saturday night concert at (Le) Poisson Rouge featuring the music of the group’s own Caleb Burhans.
On Sunday, Alarm Will Sound kicks off the annual Bang on a Can Marathon, featuring 12 hours of free music at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts and Pace University, starting at 1 PM. (Bang on a Can presented Nonesuch Records Senior Vice President David Bither with its Visionary Award at its annual benefit earlier this week; you can read his remarks here.) Later that evening, the group performs excerpts from Steve Reich’s 2012 work Radio Rewrite, which was inspired by the music of Radiohead, in the Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Guggenheim Museum as part of the Works and Process series. Alarm Will Sound will give the New York premiere of the full piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in November. Also on Sunday’s program, the Jack Quartet will perform Reich’s WTC 9/11, Meehan/Perkins Duo will perform his Nagoya Marimbas, and the composer will participate in a discussion with the Met's Limor Tomer. All the participants will give an encore presentation of the program on Monday.
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Sam Amidon begins the Northeast leg of his US tour with a concert at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on Sunday. The Vermont native recently made his Nonesuch debut with the release of Bright Sunny South, in which he combines the folk songs of his childhood with arrangements of contemporary music. The Portland Mercury, previewing a recent West Coast date, calls the album “stunning,” insisting that “his goose-pimple music is absolutely worth seeing live.”
Next up for Amidon is a performance at Next Stage in Putney, Vermont, outside his hometown of Brattleboro, on Tuesday. In advance of the show, he spoke with the Brattleboro Reformer about the songs on new album, which the paper says “connect with the listener on the level of deep, spiritual kinship.” Read that interview at reformer.com.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops perform as part of the Virginia Blues & Jazz Festival in Hot Springs, Virginia, on Saturday. As noted above, the group heads north to perform a free set for the Luminato Festival in Toronto on Monday.
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Jeremy Denk is in Southfield, Michigan, for the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, which began earlier this month and continues through June 23. Denk performs at the Seligman Performing Arts Center Saturday night, first joining fellow pianist Lisa Kaplan forher piece Whirligig and then joining the Jupiter String Quartet to perform Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor. On Sunday, Denk and Kaplan give an encore performance of Whirligig at the 555 Gallery; the program also includes a performance of Thomas Adès’ Lieux Retrouves by Denk and cellist Nicholas Photinos.
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Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell kick off the second leg of their North American tour in support of their collaborative release Old Yellow Moon, which was recently nominated for the Americana Music Association Award for best album of the year. This leg of the tour begins at The Downs in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Sunday and continues into the fall.
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Lianne La Havas takes part in the Isle of Wight Festival in the United Kingdom today and then travels to the Netherlands to perform on the final day of the Pinkpop Festival, continuing an ongoing European tour in support of her album Is Your Love Big Enough?. STV praised her performance last weekend at the RockNess festival in Scotland as “Truly spectacular from start to finish.”
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Audra McDonald continues her North American tour with a concert at The Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday. McDonald, who this week was presented with a "Made in New York" award by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for her "significant contributions" to the city's entertainment industry, will be performing music from her most recent album, Go Back Home.
On Monday, McDonald will be given the Sarah Siddons Society Award in Chicago. In advance of the event, she is featured in the Chicago Sun-Times, which says that “everything McDonald touches turns into artistic gold,” describing her new album as “a beauty, with an exquisitely ordered lineup of a dozen songs.” Read the article at suntimes.com.
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Randy Newman, takes the stage at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, tonight for their annual Gala, part of the venue’s month-long Celebration of Film & NJ Filmmakers. This is the first of a number of performances Newman has scheduled in the coming months.
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