Emmylou Harris and The Low Anthem close out their two-week tour together this weekend with three final performances: at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Maryland, tonight, the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, and the Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday.

The Buffalo News describes a recent tour stop as "something for the ages." Reviewer Joe Sweeney says "Harris sang with a voice that soothed, reassured, and reminded us that no matter how tough life can get, there is always beauty in the world." He went on to praise Harris's label mates and touring partners, concluding: "As if this night wasn’t wonderful enough, opening act The Low Anthem hushed the chattering crowd from note one of its set of stunningly imaginative roots music." Read the complete review at buffalonews.com.

The Low Anthem joins the Carolina Chocolate Drops on tour next month; for news of former's forthcoming album, Smart Flesh, read this past Monday's Nonesuch Journal.

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John Adams conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in the Dutch premiere of his latest work, City Noir, at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on Saturday. Also on the program are Milhaud's La Création du monde and Stravinsky's Les Noces. (You can hear the Pokrovsky Ensemble's performance of Les Noces on a 1994 Nonesuch album the Guardian included in its guide to the the definitive recordings of classical works.)

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Laurie Anderson performs at Club Helsinki Hudson in Hudson, New York, tonight, as part of Rock 'n' Roll Rescue, a benefit for Art for Animals hosted by Ruth Reichl, Gourmet magazine's last editor-in-chief. Among the evening's other performers is special guest artist Lolabelle, Anderson's beloved rat terrier. Also in store is some extraordinary food and an art sale featuring student portraits of the horses at Equine Advocates, a sanctuary in Chatham, New York.

The Albany Times Union looks forward to the surprises of an Anderson performance explaining that "what sounds and shapes she will bring to Hudson is anyone's guess. What you can count on is it will be fascinating."

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Sérgio and Odair Assad launch the Levine School's BrazilFest weekend tonight with a concert at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, DC. Also included in the school's weekend-long celebration of Brazil are a percussion workshop, a jazz quintet performance, and a reception featuring Brazilian cuisine. The Assad brothers perform at the Lund Auditorium at Dominica University in River Forest, Illinois, on Saturday.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops continue their tour through France with stops at Le Presqui'ile in Annonay tonight and Le 106 in Rouen on Saturday. The group heads home next week after a final tour stop at the Cabaret Sauvage in Paris on Tuesday.

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Shawn Colvin has a busy few days of shows in the Midwest this weekend. She co-headlines the Kent State Folk Festival in Kent, Ohio, with Loudon Wainwright III tonight (Jessica Lea Mayfield performed at the festival last night) and joins Wainwright again at the Goshen College Music Center in Goshen, Indiana, on Saturday. Colvin headlines her own sold-out show at The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Sunday. 

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Ben Folds brings the Lonely Avenue tour to his former home state of North Carolina for a performance at The Fillmore in Charlotte on Saturday, followed by a show at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday.

Folds spoke with the Charlotte Observer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the run-up to this weekends' shows for articles you can read at charlotteobserver.com and accessatlanta.com, respectively.

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Bill Frisell takes his Disfarmer Project on the road, with performances at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois, tonight and at the Concert Hall of the New York Society for Ethical Culture in New York City on Saturday. Joining Frisell for both shows are Viktor Krauss, Greg Leisz, and Jenny Scheinman, all of whom perform on Frisell's 2009 Nonesuch album Disfarmer. The music on both the album and the live performances was inspired by the haunting work of 20th-century American photographer Mike Disfarmer.

New York Times music critic Nate Chinen describes the album as "Frisell’s musical answer to the deep solemnity and haunting beauty of the photographer’s work, made in the spirit of what you might call countrified chamber jazz ... Its mood is reflective but never dour: tempos waft and rustle, and melodies unfold like night-blooming cactuses."

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Kronos Quartet continues its European tour with a concert at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, Portugal, on Sunday, sharing the bill with Victor Gama, featuring Rio Cunene, a piece Gama wrote for Kronos and which the group premiered at Carnegie Hall in March.

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Brad Mehldau continues the European performances of his piece Highway Rider this weekend at the Kongresshaus Stadthalle in Heidelberg, Germany, for the Enjoy Jazz Festival tonight, and in the Vienna Konzerthaus Großer Saal on Saturday. The tour features his trio, with Jeff Ballard on percussion and Larry Grenadier on bass, along with fellow Nonesuch artists Joshua Redman on sax, and Matt Chamberlain on percussion, along with the Britten Sinfonia chamber orchestra conducted by Scott Yoo. Monday's concert at the Théâtre due Châtelet in Paris on Monday will be the final performance of the piece until the January 21 concert with all the featured players at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

The Guardian recently described Mehldau as "a classical pianist turned jazz star who maintains close connections with his roots, as this year's Highway Rider eloquently confirms."

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Punch Brothers close out the Southern leg of their US tour this weekend with shows at the Variety Playouse in Atlanta tonight, the Germantown Performing Arts Center in Germantown, Tennessee, on Saturday, and George's Majestic in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Sunday. After a few days off for Thanksgiving, the quintet will appear on the holiday weekend episode of A Prairie Home Companion, broadcasting from the Cincinnati Music Hall next Saturday.

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Oumou Sangare has come to the United States for a brief tour, starting with a performance at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx, New York, on Sunday.

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Allen Toussaint, Nicholas Payton, and the Joe Krown Trio continue their New Orleans Nights tour with three performances this weekend: at The American Theatre in Hampton, Virginia, tonight, the Zoellner Arts Center's Baker Hall at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, and the Center for the Arts Concert Hall in Fairfax, New Jersey, on Sunday.

Lehigh's Brown and White calls Saturday's show "a perfect choice for not only jazz lovers, but music lovers in general."

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Sara Watkins concludes her European tour this weekend with a show at the Errigle Inn in Belfast, Northern Ireland, tonight and at the Bronte Centre in Rathriland, Ireland, on Saturday.

Watkins was featured on the BBC World Service arts program The Strand earlier this week (as were Harry Potter and Leo Tolstoy). She talks with presenter Anna McNamee about her years with Nickel Creek and her self-titled solo debut album on Nonesuch, which McNamee calls "infectious." You can listen online at bbc.co.uk.