The Wire, the critically acclaimed HBO dramatic series from creator David Simon, which first ran from 2002 to 2008, is the subject of a two-day conference at the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University in New York City today and Saturday. The event comprises eight panels in all, including this evening’s "Music from The Wire," organized by the series’ music supervisor Blake Leyh, with performances from soundtrack contributors Diablo Flamez and DJ Technics; and Saturday afternoon’s final panel, "Actors and Activism," a roundtable discussion with The Wire actors and local Baltimore activists Jamie Hector, Felicia Pearson, Wendell Pierce, and Sonja Sohn, closing with a performance by the Moving Mountains Theater Company, a nonprofit organization that trains New York City youth in the performing arts, founded by Hector.

Nonesuch released the series’ soundtrack, " … and all the pieces matter": Five Years of Music from "The Wire," in 2008, leading the San Francisco Chronicle to exclaim: "Television’s greatest series deserves a great soundtrack album, and that’s what it gets." That same year, Nonesuch also release an album of Baltimore hip-hop and club music from series, Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks from "The Wire," which Pitchfork called a "compelling end-to-end listen."

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Timo Andres concludes his five-night run with composer and songwriter Gabriel Kahane in Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on Saturday. The show is considered a "Best Bet" for the weekend by the Durham Herald-Sun and is recommended by Indy Week, which praises Andres’s playing as "minimalist bliss."

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Ry Cooder, Sharon White, and Ricky Skaggs continue their Cooder-White-Skaggs tour at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware, Saturday night.

"Preserving the values and traditions of roots music might be Cooder's lasting legacy," says the Tampa Bay Times, which spoke to Cooder ahead of the trio’s show there last week; you can read what he had to say here.

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Jeremy Denk gives a solo piano recital tonight at Lawrence University’s Memorial Chapel in Appleton, Wisconsin, tonight. The Boston Globe, reviewing Denk’s show at Jordan Hall last weekend, praised the "hugely imaginative" program and Denk’s performance full of "energy and mischievous glee."

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Rhiannon Giddens continues her US tour with shows at Ships of the Sea North Garden for the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia late this afternoon and the McGlohon Theatre in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday.

Fans around the world can watch Giddens's recent concert at Infinity Hall in Connecticut as part of the public television series Infinity Hall Live, which gives the performance its online debut at ihlive.org today.

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Lake Street Dive kicks off its European tour, featuring music from its Nonesuch Records debut album, Side Pony, at Trix Club in Antwerp, Belgium, tonight, and Sugar Factory in Amsterdam Saturday. The tour continues in the weeks ahead with shows in Germany, Denmark, France, the UK—including a sold-out show at Scala in London—and Ireland.

Earlier this week, the band added several shows to its US summer tour. Tickets for those dates go on sale today at nonesuch.com/on-tour.

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St Germain continues his North American tour with shows at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit on Saturday and Park West in Chicago on Sunday. In a four-star review of a recent London concert, the Times wrote: "[St Germain] filled the hall with an ocean of sound. Western instruments mingled with African strings … it took flight, unfurling into life-affirming polyrhythmic jams."

St Germain’s self-titled album, released on Nonesuch last year, has received critical acclaim, with NPR calling it "spellbinding" and All About Jazz praising its "unequivocally brilliant palette of sounds and styles."

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Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil kick off a six-night US tour in support of their new live album, Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live, released today on Nonesuch, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday. The tour will take the duo to Oakland, Miami, and New York, concluding with two sold-out shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.