The Telluride Bluegrass Festival runs through the weekend with performances from k.d. lang and the Punch Brothers ... Björk brings Biophilia to Spain ... Billy Bragg brings Mermaid Avenue to the Midwest ... David Byrne's Here Lives Love plays at MASS MoCA ... Carolina Chocolate Drops and Shawn Colvin are in Connecticut ... Jeremy Denk plays Liszt with San Francisco Symphony ... Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins is in Chicago ... The Low Anthem and Pat Metheny are in Germany ... Natalie Merchant plays the Pacific Northwest ... Rokia Traoré concludes three-show series in London ... and more ...
The 39th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which began yesterday in Telluride, Colorado, continues through the weekend and includes performances from Punch Brothers and k.d. lang. The festival features outdoor performances on the Main Stage as well as the more intimate Workshop Stage at Elks Park and the indoor NightGrass series for when the sun finally goes down, all timed to coincide with the summer solstice and set amidst panoramic views of the picturesque San Juan Mountains and Telluride Box Canyon.
Punch Brothers return to Telluride in full force this year, having performed a "happy hour" set at Elks Park yesterday, following Chris Thile's early set with Béla Fleck to open the Main stage. The full band hits the Main Stage Sunday evening before closing out the whole festival with a sold-out NightGrass show at the Sheridan Opera House that night.
In between their days and nights at Telluride, Punch Brothers head up to Morrison, Colorado, outside of Denver for a performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre as special guest of Wilco tonight.
k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang take the Telluride Main Stage at 6:15 PM on Saturday, following tonight's show at the Peppermill Concert Hall in West Wendover, Nevada. On Sunday, lang and the band head to Aspen to perform in the Benedict Music Tent for the Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Festival. The Charleston City Paper, reviewing lang and the band's recent debut at the Spoleto festival, concludes simply: "Oh, she's good, very good."
The Telluride Bluegrass Festival also features the nationally recognized Telluride Troubadour songwriter competition. Among this year's finalists is former Nonesuch staffer Michaela Anne, whom we're all wishing the best of luck!
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Timothy Andres gives a lecture/performance at the Cali School of Music in Montclair, New Jersey, for the 2012 Taubman Piano Seminar on Saturday. The title of his lecture: “How and why to play contemporary music."
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Björk continues her international tour featuring music from her latest album, Biophilia, with a performance at Cidade da Cultura in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, tonight.
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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Billy Bragg kicks off his North American Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me tour, featuring the words of Woody Guthrie set to music by Bragg and Wilco, as heard on Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions. The tour begins in the Midwest with concerts at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago tonight and Saturday (as well as a songwriting workshop at the Old Town School Saturday morning) and at The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Sunday.
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Here Lies Love, the new David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical on the life of Imelda Marcos, is continues its five-night, sold-out run at MASS MoCA's Hunter Center through Sunday. The performances offer an early look at the musical, which will receive its official world premiere at NYC's Public Theater in April 2013. The Boston Globe calls the 2010 Nonesuch recording of the song cycle "superb" and "sumptuous." Director Alex Timbers, in an interview with the Globe, calls Byrne "one of the most important artists of the last several decades."
Byrne spoke with NPR's All Things Considered about the origins and development of Here Lies Love. You can hear the segment, featuring clips from the album, at npr.org.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops offer a free set on the New Haven Green in New Haven, Connecticut, on Saturday as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
The band was featured on today's episode of the Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM. If you missed this morning's airing, tune in to encore presentations on Sirius XM Public Radio, XM 121/Sirius 205, throughout the day.
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Shawn Colvin performs at the Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, Connecticut, tonight as part of the Doyle Coffin Singer Songwriter Series.
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Jeremy Denk joins conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in concert at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco tonight and Saturday, performing Liszt's Piano Concert No. 1, following last night's performance of the program.
Denk recently invited NPR into his New York City apartment as he sat down to practice the Ligeti Piano Etudes featured on his Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven; watch the video here.
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A new production of Adam Guettel's critically acclaimed musical Floyd Collins from Chicago's BoHo Theatre company has opened and is earning accolades anew for the piece. "I can't imagine a better revival of a show that makes most of the Broadway musicals of the past decade look like shiny, tawdry junk," exclaims the Wall Street Journal, which calls Floyd Collins "a masterpiece." The Chicago Sun-Times says "the production is utterly enthralling." Performances run each weekend through July 15. Also playing in Chicago, at the Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, is Guettel's 2005 Tony Award-winning musical, The Light in the Piazza.
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The Low Anthem continues its tour of European summer festivals with a set at Jahrhunderthalle for the Lüften Festival in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday.
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Natalie Merchant has two orchestral performances in the Pacific Northwest this weekend, joining the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall in Seattle tonight and the Rogue Valley Symphony at the Britt Festivals in Jacksonville, Oregon, on Sunday, both featuring songs from Merchant's Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep and favorites from throughout her storied career. The Cincinnati Enquirer, reviewing Merchant's recent performance with the Cincinnati Pops, says the concert, with its rich and varied repertoire, "showed what a well-rounded performer Merchant can be."
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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, the Pat Metheny Unity Band, featuring Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass, launches an extensive international tour in Europe with a performance at Alter Schlachthof in Dresden, Germany, on Sunday. The band's self-titled release, which hit stores earlier this month, was deemed "unequivocally one of Metheny's finest" by All About Jazz and received four stars from both the Guardian, Evening Standard, and Financial Times.
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Rokia Traoré is in London for the first of two major projects she will unveil there this summer. This week, she presents a series of three shows produced by the Barbican based on aspects integral to Malian music and its traditions: Donguili – Donke – Damou (Sing – Dance – Dream). Following Monday's performance of Damou, to which the Guardian gave four stars, comes Donguili at Barbican Hall tonight and Donke at the Village Underground on Saturday.
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