John Adams’s Saxophone Concerto—the debut recording of which was released on Nonesuch Records this past spring—receives its West Coast premiere when saxophonist Timothy McAllister, for whom the Concerto was written, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra perform the piece at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California, on Saturday, as part of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. The festival, of which Adams was the Music Director in 1991 and is a composer-in-residence this summer, kicked off this year on July 27 and continues through the weekend.

The festival’s current Music Director and conductor Marin Alsop, who led the US premiere performance of the Saxophone Concerto in Baltimore last year, leads the performers in the free concert tonight. Also on tonight’s program, titled Fire, is the world premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Tumblebird Contrails and the US premiere of Brett Dean’s Fire Music. Adams and his wife Deborah O’Grady commissioned Smith’s piece through their recently established Pacific Harmony Foundation, which supports new works by young composers.

“It’s just John Adams scraping away nonessentials to unearth a kind of bewitching nocturnal soundscape,” writes the San Jose Mercury News’s Richard Scheinin of the Saxophone Concerto. “On each hearing, one perceives something new. It feels like your eyes are opening wider, continuously.” You can read more about the piece and Adams’s connection to the Cabrillo Festival in a feature article at mercurynews.com.

Marin Alsop and McAllister bring Adams’s Concerto to Brazil for a three-night run at Sala São Paulo in São Paulo next weekend.

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Bombino performs at three European festivals this weekend: a late-night set at the Ancient Trance Festival in Taucha, Germany; the Oya Festival at Tøyenparken in Oslo, Norway, on Saturday; and Afrika Tage Wein on Donauinsel in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday.

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Carolina Chocolate Drops conclude the current US leg of their summer tour back in their home state of North Carolina with an all-ages performance at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Museum Park Theater in Raleigh on Saturday. They kick off a brief, five-city tour of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands next weekend.

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Emmylou Harris, who gave a stellar performance under the New York City skies with her Old Yellow Moon duet partner Rodney Crowell for Lincoln Center Out of Doors on Wednesday, heads west to join label mate Shawn Colvin and John Oates for an acoustic concert at Aspen District Theater in Aspen, Colorado, on Sunday. The show is a benefit for Harris’s dog rescue, Bonaparte’s Retreat, and Friends of the Aspen Animal Shelter.

The New York Times music critic Nate Chinen, reviewing this week's Lincoln Center Out of Doors concert, says Harris "still has one of the sterling voices in and around country music." 

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Iron and Wine performs a double bill with Glen Hansard at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday. The Western leg of Iron and Wine’s tour, featuring selections from the 2013 Nonesuch album, Ghost on Ghost, and more, continues down the state before rounding out in Arizona and Colorado in the week ahead.

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Kronos Quartet launches its 2014–15 concert season close to home with a return visit to Rancho Nicasio, about an hour north of San Francisco, on Sunday, for an all-ages afternoon barbecue. On the program are works written for Kronos by Michael Daugherty, Sahba Aminikia, Kevin Volans, Dan Becker, Terry Riley, and Astor Piazzolla, as well as pieces by Raymond Scott and Charles Mingus.

Kronos heads next to Europe for a month-long tour of summer festivals, before returning to the United States in late September to join in on the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)'s celebration of Nonesuch Records’ 50th anniversary, Nonesuch Records at BAM.

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Pat Metheny Unity Group—Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, Ben Williams, and Giulio Carmassi—and special guest Bruce Hornsby are at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey, tonight, marking Hornsby’s last stop with the Unity Group for what they’ve dubbed the Campfire Tour 2014. The Unity Group then rounds out its US summer tour with two performances down South: at the Carolina Theater in Durham, North Carolina, on Saturday, and the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Sunday. Next up: a tour of Asia and Australia in October.

“This is an incredible band—maybe the best band I have ever had,” Metheny tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. Reviewing the band’s recent performance in Virginia, the Roanoke Times reports that “all of it showed individual wonders and ensemble tightness.”

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Nickel Creek continues the second leg of its US summer tour at the Targhee Bluegrass Festival in Alta, Wyoming, tonight, and the Festival at Sandpoint in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Saturday. Their recent set at the Pickathon Festival was a “perfect performance,” according to the Oregonian. “Time hasn't softened their chemistry or chops: their three-part vocals sounded less like harmonies than chords from a single instrument.” The band released its new album, A Dotted Line, on Nonesuch Records this past spring.

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Conor Oberst, backed by the band Dawes, his special guest throughout the tour, rounds out the Scandinavian leg of his European tour at Slottsskogen in Gothenburg, Sweden, tonight, as part of Way Out West. He offers selections from his Nonesuch debut album, Upside Down Mountain, and more there and on the Main Stage of the Haldern Pop Festival at Alter Reitplatz in Rees-Haldern, Germany, on Saturday.

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Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters perform at Glastonbury Abbey in Glastonbury, United Kingdom, on Saturday, headlining the sold-out Glastonbury Abbey Extravaganza. Plant’s new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, is due September 9 on Nonesuch/Warner Bros. Records.

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Joshua Redman, who kicked off a brief tour with The Bad Plus last night, continues performing with the trio in the Northeast this weekend: at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, tonight, and Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York, on Saturday. The Boston Globe calls Redman a “game collaborator.” The four-city tour—billed as “The Bad Plus Joshua Redman”—culminates on August with a set at the Detroit Jazz Festival, where Redman is artist-in-residence.

BBC Music Magazine lauds Redman’s “athletic, exuberant and all consuming extemporization” on his recently released Nonesuch album, Trios Live. The magazine gives the album four stars, calling it “a thrill-a-minute set.”