John Adams joins the Seattle Symphony this weekend for the final two performance in a three-night series of concerts at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The program features Adams' own Harmonielehre—the 1985 recording of which (pictured at left) marked the composer's Nonesuch Records debut album—and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, with Jonathan Biss on piano.

“After opening with an explosive brass-and-percussion pulse, the three-movement work takes its listeners through lush, serpentine underworlds of sound, before emerging into a chiming, transcendent realm," writes the Seattle Times arts writer Michael Upchurch of Harmonielehre in a preview of the concerts. The piece "is widely regarded as Adams' first orchestral masterpiece. At the time it was written, it was also a powerful call for a return to music that made sense to both the soul and the ear." Read the complete article at seattletimes.com.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops continue their US tour with two performances on the East Coast this weekend: at the Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington, New York, tonight, and the Miller Center for the Arts in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

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Shawn Colvin, following two nights of solo shows at the newly opened City Winery in Chicago, returns to the road with the band Heart, whom she first joined on tour last week. The tour continues with three stops in Florida this weekend: at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers tonight, at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg on Saturday as a part of the annual three-day charity event Ribfest, and the Marina Civic Center in Panama City 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 two stops along the East Coast this weekend: at the Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts at the University of Connecticut at Storrs on Saturday and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on Sunday. The tour remains on the East Coast through the end, later this month.

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Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach will be performed at Teatro del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City each day this weekend. The performances are part of a major international tour of the piece that recently made its West Coast with three sold-out performances in Berkeley, California. The tour heads next to Amsterdam for six performances at Het Muziektheater in January.

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Emmylou Harris and her Red Dirt Boys launched a tour of Australia earlier this week that continues with performance at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda, Victoria, on Saturday. The tour continues with performances in Canberra, Sydney, and Broadbeach Island next week before heading to New Zealand.

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James Farm—the collaborative band featuring Joshua Redman on saxophone, Aaron Parks on piano, Matt Penman on bass and Eric Harland on drums—continues its tour of Europe with two performances in Germany this weekend: at the Trans4Jazz Festival in Ravensburg tonight and the Kölner Philharmonie in Cologne on Saturday.

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Gidon Kremer joins the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite for a performance at Zhongxin Hall in Taichung, Taiwan, on Saturday. Kremer concludes his tour of Asia with a performance with the orchestra and Dirvanauskaite in Taipei Monday night.

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Kronos Quartet perform not far from their home base of San Francisco with a performance at the Dance Palace Community & Cultural Center's Carol Friedman Main Hall in Point Reyes Station on Saturday. On the program are works by Bryce Dessner, John Zorn, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Wagner, among others.

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Lianne La Havas, who made her debut appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman last night, is in Philadelphia to perform a free show broadcast live via WXPN.org and NPR.org/music live at noon ET today. La Havas performs the first of three headlining US shows with a Sunday night set at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia.

Up next is her first appearance on Conan Wednesday night followed by sold-out shows at the Roxy in LA and the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco next weekend.

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Brad Mehldau continues his European tour with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with two concerts in Germany: at Prinzregetentheater in Munich tonight and Tonhalle in Dusseldorf on Saturday. The performances are part of Mehldau's five-city tour with Orpheus featuring the premiere of Mehldau's newly commissioned work, Variations for Piano and Orchestra on a Melancholy Theme, as well as Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 and Mozart's Symphony No. 41. You'll find more about the tour in a piece posted in the Nonesuch Journal earlier this week.

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Punch Brothers continue the UK leg of their European tour with a shows at the O2 Academy in Oxford tonight and Queens Hall in Edinburgh on Sunday. Chris Thile spoke with the Scotland Herald in advance of Sunday's show for a feature article, available online at heraldscotland.com.

The band remains in the UK for performances in Gateshead, London, and Bristol into next week then head to the Netherlands and Belgium for the Crossing Border festival next weekend.

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Sara Watkins continues her US tour as a special guest of Jackson Browne with a performance at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Catoosa, Oklahoma, on Saturday and the Orpheum Theatre in Wichita, Kansas, on Sunday. Next week's tour stop at the Paramount Theater in Denver on Wednesday, November 14, will be broadcast live on AXS TV starting at 10 PM ET.

And tune in to Mountain Stage, airing on NPR stations across the US this weekend, to hear Sara Watkins' set on the show, recorded earlier this year. Also on the show are Rodney Crowell, Lucero, The Lost Brothers, and Doug Paisley. To find out more, visit mountainstage.org.