Billy Bragg concludes his extensive tours of New Zealand and Australia, featuring music from the Mermaid Avenue albums ... Laurie Anderson takes Dirtday! to Minneapolis ... The Black Keys are in New Zealand ... Shawn Colvin joins Heart in Florida ... Dr. John, The Blind Boys of Alabama tour the East Coast ... Gidon Kremer has two shows in Tokyo ... Kronos Quartet plays Scandinavia ... Punch Brothers are in France; their Austin City Limits debut airs in US ... Joshua Redman performs in London, joins James Farm in Lausanne ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Missouri and Texas ...
Billy Bragg brings his extensive tours of New Zealand and Australia to a close this weekend with two performances at the Astor Theatre in Perth, tonight and Saturday night. The tour performances, which celebrate the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth, feature one set of songs from the Mermaid Avenue albums, on which Bragg and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy put Guthrie’s words to music, and a second set of songs from throughout Bragg's career.
Adelaide Now, reviewing Wednesday's show, reports: "That distinctive raspy, gravelly voice filled the Adelaide Town Hall last night with songs of love and loss, politics and injustice but delivered in such an optimistic spirit you left the joint almost believing the world was yours to change."
Earlier this week, Billy Bragg was featured in the inaugural episode of a highly anticipated new music series on BBC Radio 4 called Mastertapes, in which presenter John Wilson of Front Row talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. The first episode, in its A-side, which aired this past Tuesday, was recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios and focused on Bragg and his third album, Talking with the Taxman About Poetry. You can listen again to the interview and session at bbc.co.uk. In the B-side of the episode, airing this coming Monday, November 5, at 11 PM BST, the studio audience has the opportunity to ask the questions, and Bragg discusses the state of protest music today. There's more on that as well at bbc.co.uk.
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Laurie Anderson brings her latest show, Dirtday!, to Minneapolis for three performances at the Walker Art Center's McGuire Theater this weekend, tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. Anderson spoke with the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the show and much more; read the interview at startribune.com.
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The Black Keys, having brought their tour of Australia to a close with two nights at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, are in New Zealand for a show at the Vector Arena in Auckland on Saturday. The band has one more show in New Zealand on Monday before launching their European tour at the end of the month. The Sydney Morning Herald calls their show "electrifying."
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Shawn Colvin plays a trio of special shows in Florida ahead, as she opens for the band Heart each night this weekend: at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre tonight, King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne on Saturday, and Hard Rock Live in Hollywood on Sunday.
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Dr. John and The Blind Boys of Alabama continue their Spirituals to Funk tour of the United States with three stops along the East Caost this weekend: at The Palace at the Stamford Center for the Arts in Connecticut tonight, the George Mason University Concert Hall in Fairfax, Virginia, on Saturday, and the Frank Guaracini Jr. Fine & Performing Arts Center in Vineland, New Jersey, on Sunday. The Syracuse Post-Standard, reviewing a Spirituals to Funk show from earlier this week, says the night was "magic."
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Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica continue their tour of Asia with two performances at Suntory Hall in Tokyo this weekend. The full group is at the Hall Saturday afternoon, performing a program that includes selections from their recently released Nonesuch album, The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould. On Sunday, Kremer is joined by cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili for a program of trio works by Franck and Tchaikovsky.
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Kronos Quartet hits two Scandinavian festivals this weekend, performing The Beatitudes, from their latest Nonesuch release, Music of Vladimir Martynov, as well as a number of Swedish premieres, at Stora Salen in Uppsala, Sweden, tonight as part of the Uppsala International Sacred Music Festival; and performing a program that includes Donnacha Dennehy's One Hundred Goodbyes (Céad Slán) at the Cosmopolite in Oslo on Saturday for the Oslo World Music Festival. The latter concerts marks the first time Kronos will have performed in the city in a dozen years.
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Punch Brothers perform at Salle G. Brassens in Lunel, France, on Saturday as part of the Festival International Mandolines de Lunel. The band heads next to the UK for an eight-city tour starting on Monday.
Fans in the United States can watch the band's debut on the Austin City Limits TV show, which was recorded earlier this year and premieres on PBS stations across the country this Saturday night. Also performing a set on the show are The Civil Wars. For additional details and to watch their ACL performance of "Movement and Location," off their latest Nonesuch album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, go to acltv.com.
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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Joshua Redman kicks off the 2012–13 season Wigmore Hall Jazz Series, which he has curated, with a performance by the Axis Saxophone Quartet, in which he joins fellow saxophonists Chris Cheek, Mark Turner, and Chris Potter at Wigmore Hall in London tonight.
Redman then joins his fellow James Farm band mates—pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland—to launch a European tour at the Casino Montbenon in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday for the JazzOnze+ Festival.
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Sara Watkins continues her tour of the US as special guest of Jackson Browne with a performance at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis and at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, Texas, outside of Dallas, on Sunday.
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