This Record Store Day weekend, John Adams conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his most recent work, Scheherazade.2, at Music Hall in Cincinnati tonight and Saturday. Violinist Leila Josefowicz, for whom the piece was written and whom Adams described as “the embodiment of his heroine as a fearless and empowered artist,” is featured. The New York Times wrote of her performance of the piece in its world premiere with the New York Philiharmonic last month: “Ms. Josefowicz, playing this formidable violin part from memory, gave a stunning performance, by turns commanding and vulnerable, slashing and sensual.” The Wall Street Journal called the premiere “electrifying.”

This weekend’s program also includes Respighi’s Pines of Rome, Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances, and Liadov’s Enchanted Lake.

---

Sam Amidon continues his tour with Sharon Van Etten this weekend, performing at Botanique in Brussels tonight, Rockhal in Luxembourg Saturday, and Paradiso Noord in Amsterdam Sunday. His most recent album, Lily-O, an album of reimagined folk songs, "showcases his ability to transform music," says NPR. "Every little unexpected twist shimmers with originality ... His highly personal approach opens a window on the American past and lets us feel it like nothing else around."

---

Laurie Anderson is in New York City taking part in the Live Ideas Festival, which she curated in conjunction with New York Live Arts' Artistic Director Bill T. Jones. Following a screening of Julian Schnabel’s film Before Night Falls this evening, she and the director will discuss the film, to which she and her late husband Lou Reed co-wrote a song. The festival, which began on Wednesday, continues through Sunday with more than 25 events across an array of music, dance, poetry, film, and discussion.

---

Timo Andres and fellow pianist David Kaplan join the Amor Artis Chorus and Orchestra, led by conductor Ryan James Brandau, in a performance of Luigi Dallapicoola’s Canti di Prigionia at St. Michael’s Church in New York City on Saturday. Next weekend, he and Kaplan join forces again in Washington, D.C., for a performance of music from his 2010 album Shy and Mighty, on which Kaplan also performed.

---

Composer Jacob Cooper and vocalist Mellissa Hughes give the second performance of his complete song cycle Silver Threads at Third Angle New Music in Portland, Oregon, tonight, following last night’s area premiere. Cooper composed the title track, the setting of which was a haiku attributed to Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, for Hughes in 2011. He enlisted five other poets to write text inspired by the haiku to expand the piece into a full cycle, which was recorded with Hughes on Nonesuch Records in 2014.

---

Jeremy Denk has three performances in Florida with the Florida Symphony Orchestra this weekend, featuring Higdon’s blue cathedral, Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade. They perform at Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa tonight, Duke Energy Center for the Arts in St. Petersburg Saturday, and Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater Sunday. Next week, Denk heads to Ohio for his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra.

---

Fatoumata Diawara continues her brief tour of the states with performances at BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland, tonight, and Jeanne Rimsky Theater in Port Washington, New York, Saturday. The tour, which features music from her debut album, Fatou, and more, wraps up next weekend.

---

Rhiannon Giddens continues her spring tour with two sold-out performances this weekend—at Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington, New York, tonight, and Somerville Theatre in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Saturday—and a show at Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine, on Sunday.

Earlier this week, Giddens was the subject of a feature on PBS NewsHour, looking at her solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. "Her debut celebrates women who influenced her, some famous like Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline, others, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Libba Cotten, much less so," says NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown. "The album also showcases Giddens’ range through gospel, blues, country, and jazz." Forbes, reviewing her recent NYC tour stop, exclaims: "Besides a thrilling voice, she comes at you with a barrage of sounds and sights and movements from an arsenal of talents that will positively floor you ... She’s a musician’s musician, and, moreover, a people’s musician, one of the best ever."

---

Richard Goode closes the season at Baltimore’s Shriver Hall on Sunday with a program of Mozart’s Adagio in B Minor, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-Sharp Major, Brahms’ Eight Piano Pieces, Debussy’s Children’s Corner, and Schumann’s Humoreske in B-Flat Major. Following a performance last week, the Boston Globe wrote, “It takes a lot of care to make Mozart’s simple melodies sound as effortlessly affecting as Goode did.”

---

Kronos Quartet has two performances this weekend at Lieu Unique in Nantes, France. Tonight’s program includes Laurie Anderson’s Flow, from her album Homeland, and Terry Riley’s Good Medicine, from Salome Dances for Peace, plus works by Bryce Dessner, Michael Gordon, and others. Saturday’s program centers around the piece Beyond Zero: 1914-1918, written for the quartet by Aleksandra Vrebalov and set to footage compiled by Bill Morrison.

---

Audra McDonald—who was just named one of the world’s Most Influential People on the TIME 100 list— continues her North American tour with two performances in New Jersey this weekend: at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center tonight and New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Saturday. Previewing an upcoming concert in Greenville, the Greenville News calls her a “force of nature, equally at home on Broadway and opera stages as she is in roles on film and television.”

---

The Brad Mehldau Trio, featuring Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums, continues its European tour with two performances in Norway: at Rokeriet Usf in Bergen tonight and at Nasjonal Jazz Scene in Oslo Saturday. The Trio heads to Sweden and Italy before a week-long residence in New York City’s Village Vanguard at the beginning of May.

---

The Joshua Redman Trio, featuring Reuben Rogers on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums, continues its European tour with two sets at Milan’s Blue Note Milan tonight; a performance at Chapiteau in Cully, Switzerland, on Saturday; and a performance at Moods in Zurich on Sunday. Reviewing a recent performance in England, Jazz Journal wrote, “The group was amazingly tight, and all three players showed sympathetic and inventive use of dynamics.”