Alarm Will Sound celebrates the recent release of its Nonesuch debut album, a/rhythmia, with an album release party and listening event in the Gallery Bar at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York's Greenwich Village Sunday night. The band will be there to play the record and talk over drinks. The event is free and open to the public.

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Following a critically acclaimed Opening Night concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its new music director Gustavo Dudamel, featuring John Adams's new City Noir, Walt Disney Concert Hall hosts another performance of an Adams work this weekend. The Los Angeles Master Chorale pairs the composer's Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer with Mozart's Requiem in a concert Sunday evening.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet is currently touring New Zealand for two weeks performing John Adams's String Quartet, which the group premiered at The Juilliard School in New York this past January. This weekend, SLSQ performs the work tonight in Wellington Town Hall and Saturday in Auckland Town Hall. You can learn more about the piece and listen to a clip from it at John Adams's website, earbox.com.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops continue their tour swing through their home state of North Carolina to perform at the The Soapbox in Wilmington. Earlier this week, the band was in Nashville, Tennessee, to perform at The Basement. Chris Parton of the Country Music Television site, CMT.com, was there and says he "came away thrilled by the three members' multi-instrumental talent and with a new interest in the Southern African-American musical tradition." Parton likens it to "an illustrated history lesson taught with silky sweet and powerfully soulful voices, bouncy fiddles, and a thumping jug."

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Christina Courtin continues her cross-country tour with the Brooklyn trio Elizabeth & the Catapult. The group has headed south for three shows this weekend: The End in Nashville tonight, The Bottle Tree in Birmingham on Saturday, and The Rocket Club in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sunday.

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Philip Glass gives a sold-out solo piano performance tonight at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago tonight. In related programming, the museum presents the landmark collaboration DANCE, featuring music by Glass, choreography by Lucinda Childs, and film by Sol LeWitt, on the piece's 30th anniversary. Performances began last night in an Opening Celebration and Benefit for MCA Stage and continue tonight and Saturday.

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The Bill Frisell Trio, featuring Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen, performs two sets at The Kennedy Center's Terrace Theatre in Washington, DC, tonight. "Through his sublime reconciliation of jazz, country, rock and blues," writes Washington Post Express contributor John Murph, "he creates picturesque soundscapes that transport listeners to small-town America where it seems as if time has stopped." The Express recently spoke with the guitarist-composer and says "it comes as no surprise that his latest disc, Disfarmer (Nonesuch Records), a musical portrait of legendary Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer, is so haunting." Read the interview at expressnightout.com.

On Saturday, the Trio heads to Shaumburg, Illinois, outside of Chicago, to perform at the Prairie Center for the Arts.

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Emmylou Harris has begun a three-week tour with her backing band, Red Dirt Boys, and special guest Buddy Miller, that takes her to the American Northeast and Canada this weekend. The group plays the Hampton Beach Casino in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, tonight; Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, Saturday; and Théâtre St-Denis in Montreal, Quebec, on Sunday.

The Democrat and Chronicle, out of Rochester, New York, where the tour heads on Wednesday, spoke with Emmylou about her career in music and her humanitarian efforts, says that throughout, "Harris has walked a path of near-flawless artistry, but breezily attributes the beauty that she’s created to other people who have been her guides." Read the article at rocnow.com.

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The Low Anthem made a brief return visit to Providence, Rhode Island, last night for a unique hometown show at the Avon Cinema. The band travels begin again this weekend with two headlining shows in the Northwest: Chop Suey in Seattle on Saturday and Lola's Room at The Crystal Ballroom in Portland on Sunday. The next night, The Low Anthem joins up with Portland natives Blind Pilot to start their month-long US tour together.

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Brad Mehldau began his first of two seasons as artistic director of London's Wigmore Hall's new jazz series last night in a duo performance with Joshua Redman. Tonight, Brad joins his Trio—bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard—for a night at the Hall, before heading to Ireland for shows at Dublin's Vicar Street on Saturday and Cork's Opera House on Sunday.

The Guardian's John Fordham says that with each Mehldau performance, "his fans are entranced all over again." What's more, says Fordham, "recent years have seen a new level of understanding within his group, new twists on old piano-trio rules and a startling new freedom in the way the pianist's left hand cajoles, threatens and encourages his right."

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Punch Brothers "were in typically dazzling technical form" at a recent Lexington, Kentucky, show, says the Lexington Herald-Leader. Tonight, the band returns to Carnegie Hall for its first performance in Stern Auditorium, following the 2007 premiere of The Blind Leaving the Blind in Carnegie's Zankel Hall, the work later featured on the band's Nonesuch debut, Punch. Punch Brothers' October tour comes to a close up north this weekend with a show at the Somerville Theatre outside of Boston on Saturday and a final stop at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, on Sunday.

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Joshua Redman is featured on the cover of this month's DownBeat magazine, an issue devoted to the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, the first festival Redman played, back in 1991, when he joined his father, the late saxophonist Dewey Redman, on stage. The younger Redman performed at this summer's festival in a more expanded role, over several nights. Read excerpts from the issue at downbeat.com and pick up a copy on newsstands now.

Last night, Redman joined label mate Brad Mehldau in a duo performance at London's Wigmore Hall, where Mehldau is artistic director of the Hall's first jazz series. This weekend, Redman, whom the Guardian describes as "one of the hottest younger saxophonists on the international circuit," plays three European nations in three nights with his trio of Matt Penman and Greg Hutchinson: the Naima Club in Forli, Italy, tonight; Chapiteau de la Pepiniere in Nancy, France, on Saturday; and Kulturzentrum Alte Feuerwache in Mannheim, Germany, on Sunday.

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Allen Toussaint first performed for the University of Wyoming's Cultural Program in 2007. "The audience was so receptive," says a University spokesperson, "he has been invited back." The encore performance takes place at the UW's Fine Arts Center Concert Hall in Laramie, Wyoming, tonight.

Toussaint then heads to the Pacific Northwest for two stops at two festivals in Washington state: the Pier 1 Historic Port Warehouse in Anacortes for the Anacortes Jazz & Blues Festival, and two sets at The Triple Door in Seattle for the Earshot Jazz Festival on Sunday.

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Sara Watkins joins singer-songwriter John Prine on the road for a tour across Canada beginning tonight. It all begins out west with two stops in British Columbia this weekend: The Centre in Vancouver tonight and the University Centre Farquhar in Victoria on Saturday.

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Right on the heels of a two-night, sold-out run at Toronto's Massey Hall, Wilco is back in the States to round out its US tour. The Toronto Sun gives four stars to Wednesday's show, saying, "regardless of which Wilco numbers turn your proverbial crank, what is certain is the band's effortless ability to mix folk, roots, rock, country, soul and pop into enticing and endearing ear candy." The National Post's Ian McKellar calls the band's current line-up "a thing to behold ... the best yet."

Wilco hits two college venues for the last three gigs of the tour, starting with the University of Michigan's Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. Detroit Free Press says that Wilco front man "Jeff Tweedy long ago staked his place as one of rock's most reliably unpredictable craftsmen" and credits the band's most recent Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album), with "distilling Wilco's myriad musical adventures into one top-notch collection of songs."

On Sunday, the band heads home to Chicago for the first of two consecutive nights at the University of Illinois Chicago Pavilion.