The Low Anthem plays the pasta sauce factory of Smart Flesh fame ... Carolina Chocolate Drops head home to North Carolina ... Shawn Colvin joins Loudon Wainwright III in New England ... Philip Glass Festival unfolds in Southern California ... Emmylou Harris celebrates Canadian Music Week ... Wanda Jackson plays her home state of Oklahoma ... k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang take to the streets of LA for John Varvatos benefit ... Jessica Lea Mayfield is in Texas for the 35 Conferette ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Timothy Andres play Carnegie Hall ... Randy Newman conquers Colorado ... Punch Brothers play in Alaska ... Stephen Sondheim receives the Olivier Special Award ... and more ...
The Low Anthem are in their home state of Rhode Island to perform a very special concert Saturday night: the band returns to the Old Porino’s Pasta Sauce factory in Central Falls where they recorded the majority of their latest Nonesuch album, Smart Flesh, to perform the final show of their US winter tour, before the band heads to Europe next week.
The Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller, when discussing the factory, says: "The space was really the main instrument for the whole record."
This is the first and only show ever to be held at the cavernous, abandoned factory where Smart Flesh was recorded. In addition to performances by The Low Anthem, The Rice Cakes, Brown Bird, and Last Good Tooth, Porino's will play host to a number of local vendors, pizza from Nice Slice, beer from Narragansett and Trinity Brewhouse, a sculpture garden, and film installations.
Click here for tickets.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops are back in their home state of North Carolina to perform a special benefit show for the Greensboro Youth Chorus at the Triad Stage in Greensboro on Saturday; they head to Bristol, Tennessee, on Sunday to perform at the Paramount Center for the Arts.
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Shawn Colvin performs three concerts in New England this weekend, all double bills with Loudon Wainwright III. First up is a show at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, tonight. In a preview of tonight's concert, Broadway World describes Colvin as “a singular and enduring talent whose songs are slow-release works of craft and catharsis that become treasured, lifetime companions for their listeners." The pair head to Connecticut on Saturday to perform at the Quick Center for the Arts in Fairfield, and then to Randolph, Vermont, for a show at the Chandler Center for the Arts.
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Guitarist Michael Daves, who will soon make his Nonesuch debut on a new album with Chris Thile, joins banjoist Tony Trischka at Rockwood Music Hall’s Stage 2 in New York City tonight. Daves is in residence at Rockwood, performing every Tuesday night. His album with Thile, Sleep with One Eye Open, is out May 10.
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Last night marked the start of the first-ever Southern California Philip Glass Festival, a two-week series of events including concerts, lectures, discussions, and movie screenings dedicated to exploring and celebrating the works and expansive career of Philip Glass.
On Saturday, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philip Glass discusses the West Coast Premiere of his opera Akhnaten by the Long Beach Opera, which will take place next weekend. This Saturday's event includes performances of pieces of the opera by members of the LBO cast. On Sunday, the Pacific Symphony performs Glass's The Passion of Ramakrishna at the Renee & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, preceded by a discussion of the piece with Carl St. Clair, the symphony's music director. That same evening, the Lido Theater in Newport Beach hosts a screening of Neil Burger’s 2006 film The Illusionist, which was scored by Glass, followed by a Q&A hosted by the Newport Beach Film Festival.
For more information, visit philipglassfestival.com. In advance of the festival, the Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed examined the composer's career, including a number of pieces that have been released on Nonesuch Records over the years. You can read the piece at latimes.com.
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Emmylou Harris performs at the Concert Hall of the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto on Saturday as part of Canadian Music Week’s Songwriters’ Circle. Randy Bachman also performs; Paul Williams is host. Emmylou’s upcoming Nonesuch release, Hard Bargain, is due out April 26 and is available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with a manuscript lyric sheet of the album's opening track, "The Road," a number of which will be signed by Harris.
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Wanda Jackson is in her home state of Oklahoma for a performance at the Robson Performing Arts Center in Claremore tonight to benefit the Akdar Shrine Center and their efforts on behalf of children's health.
Jackson and Jack White, the producer of her new album, The Party Ain't Over, will be featured on CMT's Insider Saturday afternoon at 1:30 PM ET/PT, with an encore presentation on Sunday at 11 AM.
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k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang perform Sunday night in support of the John Varvatos 8th Annual Stuart House Benefit at the John Varvatos boutique in West Hollywood, California. Varvatos closes the street and opens the door of his boutique for an afternoon of live music, shopping, auctions, great food, and kids’ activities. Proceeds benefit Stuart House, a program serving the special needs of child victims of sexual abuse and their families.
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Jessica Lea Mayfield performs Sunday in Denton, Texas, at Dan’s Silverleaf as part of the 35 Conferette. The festival precedes Mayfield's many performances at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin next week.
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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Brad Mehldau and Friends, including Joshua Redman, Timothy Andres, pianist Kevin Hays, a host of saxophonists, and vocalist Becca Stevens, join forces for two performances this weekend, featuring the world premiere of Mehldau's Rock 'n' Roll Dances No. 3 and 4 in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall tonight. Also on the program is a special performance of excerpts from Andres's Shy and Mighty by Mehldau and the composer. The performers then head to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to perform the program at the Sanders Theatre Saturday night.
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Randy Newman plays two concerts in Colorado this weekend: at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen tonight and at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Avon on Saturday. Newman’s forthcoming Nonesuch release, the Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2, is set for release on May 10 and features newly recorded solo piano takes on songs from throughout his career.
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Fernando Otero plays with his Quartet in New York City tonight at the 92nd Street Y’s downtown outpost, 92YTribeca.
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Punch Brothers have returned to the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska, for a second year in a row to perform three consecutive shows at the resort's Sitzmark stage, last night, tonight, and Saturday. In an interview this week with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, mandolinist Chris Thile said of the band's music: "I don't really believe in the concept of adhering to a style because it just strikes me as being shortsighted."
JamBase, which recently spoke with Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge, has a similar understand of the band's work. "Punch Brothers have leapt from strength to strength, a band capable of top-end bluegrass, credible Radiohead covers, Bach recitals and considerably more," writes JamBase's Dennis Cook. "There seems to be no ceiling on their potential or any boundary they won’t cheerfully transgress in their forward motion." You can read the interview at jambase.com.
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Steve Reich's music is the focus of the Third Angle New Music Ensemble's 25th anniversary gala at the Atrium at Montgomery Park in Portland, Oregon, tonight. The all-Reich concert program, titled Reichanalia, includes Drumming, Violin Phase, and New York Counterpoint. There is a pre-concert celebration with food and refreshments.
Halway around the world, conductor Thomas Adès leads the London Sinfonietta and Synergy Vocals in a performance of Reich's seminal 1976 piece Music for 18 Musicians at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, England, tonight.
Back in the US, Signal ensemble, led by conductor Brad Lubman, pairs Music for 18 Musicians with the composer's Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Double Sextet, in a performance at the EMPAC Concert Hall at Rensselaer University in Troy, New York, Saturday night. The ensemble heads down to New York City to perform Music for 18 Musicians at (Le) Poisson Rouge on Sunday.
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The music video for Philip Selway's "By Some Miracle," off the Radiohead drummer's debut solo album, Familial, is being screened at the Rollins Theatre in Austin, Texas, tonight as part of the film and interactive portions of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival. Additional SXSW screenings of the video, which was directed by David Altobelli, will be given at the Alamo on March 16 and 18, during the music portion of the festival. You can watch the video on the small screen at nonesuch.com/media.
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Stephen Sondheim will be given the Olivier Special Award at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London for the Olivier Awards at which he will be receiving the Olivier Special Award 2011 from the Society of London Theater.
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Allen Toussaint performs in his native Louisiana on Saturday at Louisiana State University's Union Theater. As recently reported in the Nonesuch Journal, Toussaint will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in a June 16 ceremony in New York City.
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Sara Watkins continues her tour with The Decemberists with two sold-out UK dates—at the O2 Academy in Leeds tonight and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Saturday—followed by a concert at Trix in Antwerp, Belgium, on Sunday.
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