The Black Keys close out their fully sold-out US tour this weekend beginning with two stops in Austin, Texas: today at the Austin City Limits Festival in Zilker Park, then Saturday night at Stubb's Bar-B-Q for their Official ACL Aftershow. (The poster for today's set, pictured at left, was designed by Kevin Tong; 70 signed copies will be for sale at the ACL merch tent, with all proceeds going to benefit the WO Smith Music School in Nashville.) On Sunday they perform at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And speaking of Austin City Limits, The Black Keys will head back to Austin after the Cain's set in Tulsa to tape a performance for Austin City Limits on Tuesday. The episode will air on PBS stations across the country on January 22, 2011, so mark your calendars and set your DVRs! Austin City Limits is now the longest-running music series in American television history.

Everyone attending any of the above is in for something special. The Vancouver Sun said of a show in that city last weekend: "The Keys were unrelenting, sweaty and wild right from the very beginning ... Mind-blowing stuff."

---

Alarm Will Sound returns to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the group was previously artist-in-residence, to perform 1969 at the Carlisle Theater on Saturday. The multimedia piece tells the story of great musicians—John Lennon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul McCartney, Luciano Berio, Yoko Ono, and Leonard Bernstein—striving for a new music and a new world in the turmoil of the late 1960s. The concert coincides with what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday.

---

Timothy Andres is in upstate New York for the world premiere of Trade Winds, his new septet for the Ensemble ACJW, at Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. Also on the program are works by Brahms and Schubert. On Monday, Andres will be in New York City, performing with his four fellow Yale composers of Sleeping Giant at (Le) Poisson Rouge. The following day, Ensemble ACJW will give an encore performance of the Skidmore program at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

---

Carolina Chocolate Drops continue their US tour close to home in Pittsboro, North Carolina, on Sunday, performing at Meadow Stage as a part of the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance. The trio heads next to Philadelphia to perform at World Café Live next week. Philadelphia Daily News music writer Jonathan Takiff previews the show with a feature on the Chocolate Drops who, he writes, "brazenly mix and match period flavors, starting with a core love of rural Piedmont mountain music but also mixing in vintage jugband jazz, minstrel novelties and sexy blues."

---

Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica perform in Minsk, Belarus, tonight, and at the Philharmonie in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday. Their latest Nonesuch release, De Profundis, was described as a program of "sheer delight and exquisite beauty" in a recent five-star Audiophile Audition review and is a Pick of the Week this week on WNYC's Soundcheck.

---

Philip Glass continues his residency at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago in Chile performing with the Philip Glass Ensemble, on a program titled Philip Glass: A 40 Year Retrospective, tonight and Saturday. On Sunday, Glass concludes his residency there with a solo set.

---

Wanda Jackson performs at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, New York, tonight and at The Record Collector in Bordentown, New Jersey, on Saturday. The New Yorker, previewing tonight's show, noted Jackson's "growly vocals, remarkable energy, and boundless good humor." The Star Ledger says of Saturday's show: "For those lucky enough to get
seats, you can expect a high-energy, stomping good time."

---

Kronos Quartet performs two sold-out shows at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City tonight and tomorrow. Tonight's program features the world premiere of new works by Aleksandra Vrebalov and Michael Gordon, the New York premiere of Maria Schneider's First String Quartet, plus works by Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, and Terry Riley. Saturday's show features additional firsts, including two additional world premieres from Vrebalov and Gordon, and new arrangements of Schubert works by Judith Berkson, who joins on vocals.

"As the superstars of the new-music scene," writes New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn in recommending this weekend's shows, "the Kronos Quartet generally sets up camp at Carnegie Hall or the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But the trendy, club atmosphere of Le Poisson Rouge should suit the group perfectly, and performs two concerts there this weekend."

---

As noted yesterday in the Nonesuch Journal, Natalie Merchant launches her tour of the Northeast United States tonight at the Bardavon Theater in Poughkeepsie, New York. The tour features Merchant performing with full symphony orchestras. For tonight's performance, she is joined by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic.

---

Pat Metheny continues his three-week tour of the United States featuring the music and instruments of his latest Nonesuch release, Orchestrion, with a stop tonight at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. He plays the Mayo Center in Morristown, New Jersey, on Saturday, and the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on Sunday. Metheny recently discussed the inner workings of the Orchestrion with New York Times writer Phillip Lutz for an article available at nytimes.com. In the run-up to Sunday's show, he spoke with the Albany Times Union for a Q&A you can find at timesunion.com.

Recent Orchestrion performances have led to rave reviews. Following last weekend's show at Carnegie Music Hall, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it "amazing" and said it "proved every bit a visual tour de force as a sonic one." The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review explains that, while Metheny may be the only musician on stage, "it sounds like 40 or 50 musicians are playing the lush, lyrical Orchestrion suite."  The tour opener at the Alys Stephens Center led the Birmingham News to call the show "lyrical and layered, satisfying and shimmering."

---

Punch Brothers continue their fall tour with two stops in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday. First up is a free in-store performance at Grimey's music store, followed by a concert at Vanderbilt University's Ingram Hall.

---

Joshua Redman and his trio, featuring Reuben Rogers on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums, continue their residency at Jazz at the Bistro in St. Louis, Missouri, performing multiple sets tonight and Saturday. On Sunday, the trio will perform at the Seretean Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

---

Sara Watkins finishes her weeklong tour with Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers this weekend with shows at Radio Radio in Indianapolis tonight and at the Rex Theater in Pittsburgh on Saturday. On Sunday, Watkins performs at Park Tavern in Atlanta as a part of Unplugged in the Park, Atlanta's longest running free concert series.