Lake Street Dive, currently touring the world with music from its acclaimed 2016 Nonesuch debut album, Side Pony, has made its way to the Southern Hemisphere, performing across Australia and New Zealand this month. The band is in Victoria this weekend, playing at Howler in Melbourne tonight, then head a couple of hours south for a set at Summer of Soul in Leongatha on Saturday, and back up to Oakleigh for a show at Caravan Music Club in on Sunday. Lake Street Dive plays two shows in New Zealand next week, before returning to Australia next weekend for two sets at the Sydney Festival.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegraph placed Side Pony at No. 2 on its list of the year's best albums (second only to Beyoncé's Lemonade). WFUV named it among the Top 50 Albums of the Year and the album tracks "Call Off Your Dogs" and "Mistakes" among the Top 100 Songs. Listeners of NPR Music's All Songs Considered voted Side Pony one of their Favorite Albums of 2016.

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Just after the weekend, Sam Amidon plays a sold-out show at (le) Poisson Rouge in New York City on Monday, as part of NYC Winter Jazzfest. The unique program, entitled “Sam Amidon Extended,” finds the singer/fiddler/banjoist/guitarist joined by a cast of musicians including bassist and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, guitarist Marc Ribot, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, saxophonist Sam Gendel, bassist Linda Oh, keyboardist Kris Bowers, pianist Richard Sears, and drummer Jeremy Gustin.

Indy Week has praised Amidon for his “unforgettable voice, an instrument in which technical sophistication tempers oaky roughness. Amidon's art-folk integrates elements of jazz and contemporary classical; he sounds like someone dreaming of Americana rather than studying it.”

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Pianist Jeremy Denk joins the North Carolina Symphony, conducted by Christoph König, for performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, at Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh tonight and Saturday. Also on the program is Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and Schreker’s Intermezzo.

The New York Times says Denk “is a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs, in whatever combination—both for his penetrating intellectual engagement with the music and for the generosity of his playing.” The Washington Post has praised him for “expressing virtuosity, humor, nostalgia and experimental daring” as well as his “inimitable sensibility … alive to the work’s poetry, wit, impulsiveness and off-beat yet irresistible charm.”

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Chris Thile continues his inaugural season as host of A Prairie Home Companion with a show at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle on Saturday. Joining him as special guests for the episode are The Shins, Regina Spektor, and comedian Hari Kondabolu. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend, and fans around the world can watch the live broadcast online at prairiehome.org starting at 2:45 PM PT.

Thile and pianist / label-mate Brad Mehldau will release a self-titled duo album, a mix of covers and original songs, on January 27. The two have just unveiled a video of their performance of Elliott Smith’s “Independence Day,” at Bowery Ballroom in NYC, which you can watch here.