The Black Keys kicked off their fall European tour earlier this week with performances in Lisbon and Madrid (the poster for which, by Xavi Forne of Error! Design, is pictured at left). The tour continues with concerts at Halle Tony Garnier in Lyon, France, tonight and Palaolimpico in Turin, Italy, on Saturday.

The band, whose latest album, El Camino, was recently named among the ten best albums of the year by Mojo, remains on the Continent through next week, with shows in Amsterdam, Munich, and Dusseldorf, before heading to the UK for a week of shows culminating in two nights at the O2 Arena in London. The Black Keys close out 2012 and ring in the new year with two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas on December 30 and 31.

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Bombino, whose Dan Auerbach–produced Nonesuch debut album is due out in early 2013, is in New Delhi, India, this weekend, where he performs at Zorba as part of the Amarrass Desert Music Festival.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops kick off the last leg of their 2012 tour, a seven-city run through the South, making stops in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and their home state of North Carolina. The band gets things started this weekend with performances at Variety Playhouse in Atlanta tonight, Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte on Saturday, and Marathon Music Works In Nashville on Sunday.

In advance of tonight's concert, band member Rhiannon Giddens spoke with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Alan Sculley about recording the Chocolate Drops' latest album, Leaving Eden, which Uncut recently named among the year's Best Americana Albums.

“Leaving Eden continues the group’s tradition of making spirited music that honors the rich history of the string band form," writes Sculley, "but has more than enough of a modern attitude (as well as some contemporary musical touches) to keep the songs from sounding like relics from the past."

Read the complete article at ajc.com.

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Shawn Colvin performs at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas, about an hour south of her hometown of Austin, tonight. Fiddler Warren Hood, a fellow Austinite, opens.

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Jeremy Denk joins the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City on Sunday, the first of two concerts there. The program features six Bach concertos. While Sunday's concert is sold out, the performers give an encore presentation of the program on Tuesday. The New Yorker calls the concerts "a treat, a program consisting of six of Bach’s Keyboard Concertos, with a bevy of strings joined by an exciting soloist, Jeremy Denk."

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Gidon Kremer continues his European tour with cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite, a member of his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. The trio makes three stops in Italy—Teatro dei Rozzi in Siena tonight, Teatro Comunale in Treviso on Saturday, and Teatro La Fenice in Venice on Sunday—performing works by Tchaikovsky, Franck, and Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer.

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Lianne La Havas continues her European tour with performances at Kaufleuten in Zurich on Saturday and at Ampere in Munich on Sunday.

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Jessica Lea Mayfield launches a US tour with her brother David Mayfield on their Sibling Rivalry Tour. Things kick off in the Northeast with shows at Ventosa Vineyards in Geneva, New York, tonight, The Slipper Room in New York City on Saturday, and The Gallery at The Abbey Bar in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. The tour continues over the next few weeks with stops in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and, finally, back in the siblings' hometown of Kent, Ohio.

Growing up in Kent, the Mayfields were surrounded by bluegrass and folk music; both David and Jessica first performed with their family band One Way Rider, traveling across the country in a 1956 tour bus once belonging to Bill Monroe, Kitty Wells, and Ernest Tubb.

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The Brad Mehldau Trio brings its European tour and its 2012 schedule to a close with two performances in Turkey this weekend: at Bahcesehir Cultural Center in Istanbul on Saturday and at Antalya Cultural Center in Antalya, Turkey, on Sunday, the latter for the Antalya Piano Festival. (Gidon Kremer and his trio perform at the festival next weekend.)

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Natalie Merchant is on Long Island to perform at the Tilles Center in Greenvale, New York, on Saturday. She is joined by the Chelsea Symphony in performing music from her Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep, in which she set poetry to music. Merchant has teamed up with award-winning children's book illustrator Barbara McClintock for a new picture book based on Leave Your Sleep that includes a CD with 19 songs from the album. Both the book and the original, complete CD are available in the Nonesuch Store.

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Punch Brothers fall US tour is in full swing with three performances in California this weekend: at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz tonight, the Luckman Theatre at Cal State University in Los Angeles on Saturday, and Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach on Sunday. The Milk Carton Kids support the band all along this leg of the tour.

In advance of tonight's sold-out show in Santa Cruz, Punch Brothers' Chris Thile spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle about the band and his own thoughts on the music he writes. "In creating new music, I'm always trying to find the middle, the sweet spot between music for the mind and music for the body, between the visceral and the cerebral," he tells the Chronicle. "You've got to have both." Read the article at sfgate.com.

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Sara Watkins kicks off her seven-city West Coast tour, with Aoife O'Donovan supporting, at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace in Pioneertown, California, Sunday. The tour continues with additional stops in California, Oregon, and Washington in the week ahead. Watkins joins her brother Sean and a number of very special guests for a festive Watkins Family Hour Christmas show at Largo in Los Angeles on December 19.