Steve Reich is the Artist-in-Residence at the 2014 Big Ears Festival, which takes place in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, this weekend. The composer joins members of Sō Percussion for the Big Ears Launch Party to kick off the three-day festival with a performance of his famed 1972 piece Clapping Music at the Knoxville Museum of Art tonight. Reich returns to the museum for a Sunday afternoon conversation about his body of work. Sō Percussion and the nief-norf contemporary music ensemble perform Reich’s 1971 classic piece Drumming at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday, and the entire festival culminates in an all-Reich concert at the theater on Sunday: Steve Reich joins conductor-composer Brad Lubman for an encore performance of Clapping Music; Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood performs Electric Counterpoint; Lubman leads the Ensemble Signal in Reich’s new Radio Rewrite; and finally, the Ensemble Signal performs the groundbreaking 1976 piece Music for 18 Musicians.

“Rhythmic complexity, timbre variety, melodic invention—all compensate for music that stays harmonically the same,” Reich tells the Nashville Scene. “This makes it riveting and turns your attention to those details rather than harmonic change.” About his latest piece Radio Rewrite, inspired by two songs from Radiohead, Reich told Tennessee’s Daily Times that “it was great to use their harmonies and melodies in my own way, very freely.”

Also at the Big Ears Festival, Jonny Greenwood gives the US debuts of some of his own works at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday, alongside members of the Wordless Music Orchestra (WMO). The WMO also performs music from three film soundtracks by Greenwood, all of which were released on Nonesuch Records: from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s films The Master (2012) and There Will Be Blood (2007) and director Tran Anh Hung’s 2011 film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood.

Soloists from the WMO go on to perform John Adams’s 1978 piece Shaker Loops at the Knoxville Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon. Also performing at the Big Ears Festival are John Cale, Television, Marc Ribot, Dean Wareham, and Glenn Kotche, who recording his own variation on Steve Reich’s Clapping Music on a 2006 Nonesuch Records solo album, Mobile.

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Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah opens in theaters and IMAX across North America and elsewhere today. Nonesuch Records released the film’s soundtrack earlier this week, featuring a score by Clint Mansell performed by Kronos Quartet, joined by Patti Smith for her song “Mercy Is.” The album is available in the Nonesuch Store and at iTunes.

Russell Crowe stars as Noah in the film inspired by the epic story of courage, sacrifice, and hope. The cast stars Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. To find out where Noah is playing near you and to reserve tickets, visit noahmovie.com.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops kick off the Northeastern leg of their US tour with two shows in Vermont—at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington tonight and the Woodstock Town Hall in Woodstock on Sunday—bookending a sold-out set at the Somerville Theatre outside of Boston on Saturday.

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Shawn Colvin and fellow singer-songwriter Steve Earle round out the March leg of their “Songs and Stories, Together Onstage” duo tour at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston tonight and at the Keswick Theatre in Philadelphia on Saturday. These two longtime friends and mutual admirers share music from their extensive catalogues as well as some of their favorite songs by other classic songwriters, sharing the stage for duets, storytelling, song swapping, and guitar playing.

“I really enjoy the camaraderie and fellowship,” Colvin told the Indianapolis Star about touring with Earle. “I enjoy harmonizing and accompanying—being a supporting player can be a magical thing. And there are an awful lot of laughs.” Colvin continues with solo sets in April and rejoins Earle for a new round of duo dates out West on May 17.

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Jeremy Denk performs the 13th Annual Robert E. Turner Piano Recital at Mendelssohn Hall in Santa Monica, California, on Sunday afternoon, as part of the Maestro Chamber Music Society’s season. The program opens with Haydn’s Piano Sonata No. 52, followed by works by Schubert interspersed with selections from Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path, and closes with Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9. Denk was recently named the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize recipientand was named the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's newest Artistic Partner, marking Denk's first appointed position with an orchestra.

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In a remarkable coincidence, Richard Goode performs selections from Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path on the East Coast the same weekend Denk performs the piece on the West Coast. Goode’s concert on the Westermann Stage in Adelphi University’s Performing Arts Center in Garden City, New York, tonight, also includes Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and the first dozen of Debussy's Préludes (Book 1). He begins a four-night run with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Canada on April 8.

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Iron and Wine, aka singer-songwriter Sam Beam, continues his tour at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska, tonight, presented by the University of Alaska at Anchorage (UAA), which last brought Beam to the state in 2009. “I think I get more inspiration from, well, poets,” he tells the UAA’s newspaper The Northern Light about his musical influences. “I grew up with punk rock music and whatever was on the radio and country music.” Iron and Wine heads to warmer climates in April, playing one set in Honolulu and four sets in Australia.

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Kronos Quartet, as a highlight of its 40th anniversary season, performs at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium in New York City tonight. The concert features collaborations with many of Kronos’ close colleagues and longtime artistic partners throughout its “40-year adventure” (New York Times). On the program is the world premiere of Terry Riley’s The Serquent Risadome (written for Kronos), the New York premiere of Philip Glass’s Orion: China, and works by Laurie Anderson, Clint Mansell, Bryce Dessner, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Jherek Bischof. The concert also includes two pieces from the Quartet’s forthcoming album, A Thousand Thoughts: Omar Souleyman’s Syrian folk-pop song La Sidounak Sayyada and the traditional Scandinavian folk song Tusen Tankar. Special guests include Dessner, Bischoff, Wu Man, four young string quartets from Face The Music, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. 

Kronos heads out to Long Island for a performance in the Hillwood Recital Hall of Long Island University Post’s Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville, New York, on Saturday. The program includes pieces by Glass, Anderson, Mansell, Dessner, Alter Yechiel Karniol, Missy Mazzoli, and Wagner.

Also on Saturday, Q2 Music, the online new-music station from WQXR, will launch an encore presentation of KRONOS AT 40, the 24-hour marathon stream of Kronos music it first aired this past Monday. Tune in at wxqr.org.

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Pat Metheny Unity Group—woodwind player Chris Potter, drummer Antonio Sanchez, bassist Ben Williams, and multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi—closes out the North American leg of its world tour at The Town Hall in New York City tonight. The group, which recently released the album Kin (←→) on Nonesuch Records, launches the European leg of the tour on April 25.

Unity Group concerts across the country have been met with critical acclaim. “Pat Metheny showed why he’s become one of the most respected and influential musicians in contemporary jazz,” exclaims the Santa Barbara Independent’s Charles Donelan of a recent show; “truly one of the most impressive displays of sustained musicianship that I have witnessed at the Lobero in any genre.”

“All five men … played with the fearlessness that all jazz groups should possess,” says the Oregonian. “That he and the band were able to leave a deep impression with each song, no matter how quickly they shifted gears is a testament to the abilities of the players.”

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Punch Brothers close out their three-week tour of the US in the Northeast this weekend: at Jorgensen Auditorium in Storrs, Connecticut, on Saturday, and Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York, on Sunday, with opening sets by Aoife O'Donovan. During one recent tour stop, the group “dazzled the crowd with their expert musicianship and playful showmanship,” wrote the Charleston Gazette. Punch Brothers perform at the High Sierra Music Festival in July.

Chris Thile joins his Nickel Creek band mates Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins for their first tour since 2007 starting next month. The band’s new album, A Dotted Line, is out this Tuesday on Nonesuch Records and is streaming in full till then as an NPR First Listen at npr.org/music.

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Rokia Traoré brings the music of her latest Nonesuch album, Beautiful Africa, and more to Le Carré Sévigné in Cesson Sevigne in France tonight.

In May, Traoré joins Devendra Banhart to kick off Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records, the Barbican's month-long celebration of Nonesuch Records' 50th anniversary at the Barbican Hall in London.