Natalie Merchant, whose new album, Keep Your Courage, is out today, kicks off a spring tour of the United States with sold-out shows at Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York, tonight and tomorrow. “Keep Your Courage has some of Natalie Merchant’s best songwriting,” says Associated Press writer Mark Kennedy in his interview with Merchant, which you can read here. Merchant also spoke about the album and tour with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe on Weekend Edition Sunday, which you can hear here.

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John Adams’s works are being performed around the world this weekend, from Taipei to Baltimore to Paris and Dortmund. Adams’s 2007 piece Doctor Atomic Symphony gets its Taiwanese premiere with the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson at Weiwuying Concert Hall in Kaohsiung, Taipei—the Opening Concert of the Weiwuying International Music Festival—tonight. Roberston led the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra on the premiere recording of the piece, released on Nonesuch in 2009.

Adams’s 1995 songplay, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, opens at the Baltimore Theatre Project tonight and runs through Sunday. The INSeries Opera production, directed by Timothy Nelson, then heads to Washington, DC, for a run at Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lang Theatre April 22–30. The piece uses the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake as a starting point to explores race, gender, and immigration issues. Nonesuch released its first recording in 1998.

Performances of Adams’s 1987 opera Nixon in China continue in two European cities—Oper Dortmund conducted by Olivia Lee-Gundermann at at Opernhaus in Dortmund, Germany, tonight and Opéra National de Paris conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at Opéra Bastille in Paris on Sunday. The original cast recording of Nixon in China was released on Nonesuch thirty-five years ago on Saturday and went on to win the Grammy Award. It is included in the forty-disc John Adams box set Collected Works, along with a Blu-ray of the Metropolitan Opera's production. Nixon in China gets its Spanish premiere with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Madrid led by Ivor Bolton at Teatro Real in Madrid on Monday.

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Pianist Jeremy Denk joins the Phoenix Symphony and conductor Tito Muñoz for performances of Brahms’ Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major for Piano & Orchestra, Op. 83, at Symphony Hall in Phoenix, Arizona, tonight, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Also on the program is William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, performed by the orchestra along bass-baritone Norman Garrett and the Phoenix Symphony Chorus.

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Cécile McLorin Salvant performs at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan, tonight, joined by pianist Sullivan Fortner, guitarist Marvin Sewell, flutist Alexa Tarantino, and percussionist Keita Ogawa—all of whom perform on her Nonesuch debut album, Ghost Song—and bassist Emma Dayhuff. She and Fortner head to Miami for a special duo performance at the French American School of Miami’s annual gala on Saturday.

Salvant’s new album, Mélusine, released last month on Nonesuch, features a mix of five originals and interpretations of nine songs, dating as far back as the twelfth century, mostly sung in French along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl. "Anyone who thinks they already know the full extent of Cécile McLorin Salvant's artistry should listen to Mélusine without further delay," exclaims Jazzwise.

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Guitarist Jeff Parker performs at Public Records in Brooklyn on Saturday as part of International Anthem’s series at the venue presented with Qobuz. Parker, a recent Deutscher Jazzpreis nominee for International String Instruments, released his latest solo album, Forfolks, in 2021 on International Anthem and Nonesuch. "A beautifully freewheeling, guitar-driven expression of joy and musical exploration," says Guitar World, "a masterpiece of improvisation." "Beautiful, resonant, and focused," says the Quietus. "This matches anything he’s produced during his career so far."