Composer and pianist Timo Andres makes his Carnegie Hall solo debut in New York City tonight. He brings a program to Zankel Hall that includes the world premiere of his own Fiddlehead, a piece commissioned by Carnegie Hall; the New York premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Imaginary Pancake; Robin Holcomb’s “Wherein Lies the Good,” from her 1996 Nonesuch album, Little Three, which Andres includes in his Nonesuch Selects video; and works Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Frederic Rzewski.

Andres' new album, The Blind Banister, out March 22 on Nonesuch Records, comprises three works by the composer/pianist: the piano concerto The Blind Banister (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016), with Andres as soloist, and Upstate Obscura for chamber orchestra and cello, with soloist Inbal Segev—both of which feature Metropolis Ensemble and conductor Andrew Cyr—and the solo piano piece Colorful History, also performed by Andres. You can hear the third movement of Upstate Obscura, “Vanishing Point,” here.

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Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and his quintet—pianist Sam Harris, guitarist Emmanuel Michael, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Justin Brown—perform two sets at The JAI in La Jolla, California, tonight. Akinmusire’s Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, released in December, has received critical acclaim, including being named among the year’s best by the New York Times, Jazzwise, Tidal, Tom Moon, Peter Margasak, ArtsFuse, and the Irish Times. “A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023,” says DownBeat in its five-star review. “This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time.” Ambrose is on the cover of the February issue of Jazzwise; you can read that article here.

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Sam Amidon, currently touring North America with This Is the Kit, heads to Pennsylvania this weekend, performing at the Music Hall at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia tonight and Thunderbird Music Hall in Pittsburgh on Saturday. Amidon leads his own US headline tour following his set at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville next month.

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Laurie Anderson is joined by novelist Tom McCarthy in conversation at the Rubin Museum in New York City tonight for the sold-out second installment of About Time, a series of on-stage conversations in which Anderson tackles questions to help reframe the concept of time and perhaps one’s perspective on life. Anderson received the Recording Academy’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award during GRAMMYs weekend in Los Angeles earlier this month.

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Pianist Jeremy Denk performs the complete Bach Partitas at Wigmore Hall in London on Saturday. You can hear him perform Bach, Chopin, and many other composers on his 2019 album, c. 1300–c. 2000, which the Telegraph called “quite exhilarating” and BBC Radio 3 called “a thoughtfully curated, beautifully played, brilliantly annotated recital.”

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Rhiannon Giddens concludes her European tour, featuring music from her new album, You’re the One, with concerts at Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow tonight and Vicar Street in Dublin on Sunday. Ahead of their Barbican Hall concert earlier this week, Giddens and her band were on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row to talk with presenter Tom Sutcliffe about You're the One and perform two songs from it live in the studio: "If You Don't Know How Sweet It Is" and "Yet to Be"; you can hear that here. While in tour in Germany last week, they stopped by Das Erste to perform “Yet to Be” on ARD-Morgenmagazin; you can watch that here.

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Guitarist Mary Halvorson joins the Tomeka Reid Quartet—cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara—for a double bill with Tomas Fujiwara’s 7 Poets Trio in New England this weekend, performing at Bowdoin College’s Kanbar Auditorium in Brunswick, Maine, tonight; Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Creative Arts in Providence on Saturday; and Real Art Ways in Hartford on Sunday. Halvorson’s new album, Cloudward, released last month on Nonesuch Records, features eight new compositions Halvorson performs with her sextet—the improvisatory band, including Fujiwara, that performed on her acclaimed 2022 Nonesuch debut albums Amaryllis and Belladonna—and “reveals a newfound sense of beauty and clarity,” per the Guardian. “[Halvorson] outdoes herself again,” says All About Jazz. “Cloudward is just too good.”

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Hurray for the Riff Raff, aka Alynda Segarra, launches their North American tour, in support of their new album, The Past Is Still Alive, out today on Nonesuch Records, at Tipitina's in their hometown of New Orleans on Sunday. "With the state of the world being in such chaos, I really do feel different. This is absolutely the right time for me to be alive, and writing songs. There's no doubt in my mind anymore," Segarra tells the New York Times’ Lindsay Zoladz in a feature article in last Sunday’s paper you can read here. Hurray for the Riff Raff released a video for the album track “Hawkmoon” earlier this week; you can watch it here.

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Kronos Quartet brings its Five Decades: A 50th Anniversary Celebration concert tour to Arizona for a performance at the Virginia G. Piper Theatre at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts tonight. The program includes Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet, and works by Terry Riley, Sam Green, Gabriella Smith, Nicole Lizée, Severiano Briseño, and Trey Spruance. Nonesuch released the world premiere recording of Triple Quartet performed by Kronos Quartet, who commissioned the work, in 2001.

As part of the Kronos: Five Decades celebrations, Nonesuch released the group’s award-winning 1990 album Black Angels, the title piece of which inspired David Harrington to found the group in 1973, on vinyl last week. The Evening Standard included it among its “100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.” Late last year, Nonesuch released the first-ever vinyl edition of the acclaimed 1995 album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass. The Washington Post called it “an ideal combination of composer and performers.”

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Makaya McCraven and his band—trumpeter Marquis Hill, bassist Junius Paul, guitarist Matt Gold, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and harpist Brandee Younger—are joined by a small chamber ensemble to perform music from McCraven’s latest album, In These Times, at The Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, tonight, and The Fruit in Durham, North Carolina, on Sunday. In These Times was released in 2022 via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL Recordings and made several year's best album lists, including those of Pitchfork (“a high-water mark”), NPR Music's Nate Chinen (“the culmination of a years-long experiment in groove ... just might be Makaya McCraven's manifesto”), and Treble (“McCraven's masterwork”).

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Mandy Patinkin brings his Being Alive tour—a collection of his favorite Broadway and classic American tunes from the likes of Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Harry Chapin, and more—to Montclair State University’s Kasser Theatre in New Jersey on Saturday, accompanied by pianist Adam Ben David. Patinkin's latest album, Children and Art, was released on Nonesuch in 2019.

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Cécile McLorin Salvant, joined by pianist Glenn Zaleski and percussionist Savannah Harris, brings music from her critically acclaimed new album, Mélusine, and more to Goucher College’s Kraushaar Auditorium in Towson, Maryland, on Saturday. The performance is followed by an in-depth on-stage interview with WYPR’s Tom Hall. Mélusine, which DownBeat includes in its year’s best list and calls “a masterpiece of thoughtful, adventurous music,” is up for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album; public voting is open now at naacpimageawards.net.