Offa Rex, the new project from English singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, kicks off a North American tour in support of its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, with a sold-out show at the Aladdin Theater in Portland on Sunday. The tour continues through August, with dates at Newport Folk Festival, Town Hall in New York, and more, including Travelers' Rest, The Decemberists' sold-out festival in Missoula, Montana.

Chaney and Meloy were on BBC Radio 2’s The Folk Show earlier this week, talking with host Mark Radcliffe about the project. You can hear what they had to say at bbc.co.uk.

The Queen of Hearts was released last week on Nonesuch to widespread critical acclaim. "It's a match made in folk-rock heaven," exclaims NPR Music. “The Queen of Hearts hums with the resonance of bygone eras and ancient ways, of doomed love and arduous hardship—all of it embroidered into the patchwork tapestry of life itself." The Independent gives the album a perfect five stars, calling it "a sublime collection of old songs given contemporary heart transplants without ever betraying their essential original truth and spirit."

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Pianist Jeremy Denk is at the Music Academy of the West’s Lobrero Theatre in Santa Barbara on Saturday, leading Academy fellows in a chamber music concert. On the program are Haydn’s Piano Trio, Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E Flat Major, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major. 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.”

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Rhiannon Giddens is special guest on the Soul2Soul tour with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill this weekend: playing Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona, tonight; Citizen Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, on Saturday; and Valley View Casino Center in San Diego on Sunday.

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Tigran Hamasyan brings his Atmosphere Quartet—trumpeter Arve Henriksen, guitarist Eivind Aarset, and Jan Bang on electronics—to Teatret Vårt in Molde, Norway, tonight as part of Molde Jazz Festival. Hamasyan, currently touring Europe behind his new album, An Ancient Observer, concludes this run of dates in Italy next week. DownBeat calls the new album "simply breathtaking."

Guitarist / label mate Pat Metheny is also at Molde Jazz, joining the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra for a performance at Bjørnsonhuset tonight. The Guardian writes: “Over the past 40 years, few jazz musicians have balanced experimentation with popular appeal as successfully as the US guitarist Pat Metheny.”

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Emmylou Harris performs at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis tonight and the Venetian Theater at Caramoor in Katonah, New York, on Saturday, the latter as part of the venue’s American Roots festival in which Rhiannon Giddens performed earlier this season. Harris, whom the New York Times calls “the reigning queen of Americana,” was the musical guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week. You can watch her performance of Steve Earle’s “Pilgrim” here.

Nonesuch released the first-ever vinyl edition of Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers' Grammy Award–winning 1992 album, At the Ryman, in May and released a five-LP box set of Harris’s first five studio albums, Queen of the Silver Dollar, for Record Store Day in April.

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Lianne La Havas performs at Printworks London on Sunday as part of AFROPUNK Festival 2017. Her Grammy Award–nominated second album, Blood, was released in 2015 to critical acclaim; Pitchfork called it "dynamic and poignantly self-assured in its introspection … an almost seamless album," and the Boston Globe said, "[Jamaica's] rhythmic pleasures permeate Blood, her most sonically diverse effort yet, pulsating with electronic flourishes that create a fascinating tension against the serene elegance of her voice … a beautiful album.”

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Lake Street Dive continues its extensive US summer tour with two sold-out shows at Thalia Hall in Chicago tonight and Saturday. The Boston Globe calls the band’s 2016 Nonesuch debut, Side Pony, an "exuberant, harmony-rich blend of pop, soul, and jazz."

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k.d. lang launched her Ingénue Redux Tour in Australia earlier this week, and closes out a three-night run in Melbourne with a performance at the State Theatre tonight before heading to Perth’s Riverside Theatre on Sunday. The tour follows the release of the Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition two-CD set on Nonesuch last week, in celebration of the Grammy and Juno Award–winning album's silver anniversary. The vinyl edition is due August 18. "Ingénue still dazzles, 25 years later,” exclaims a new Uncut review. “A modern classic … Perfectly pitched, in pretty much every way.”

The Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing the first night of the tour, calls it “a truly cracking concert,” noting: “After 25 years, Lang's breakthrough album Ingenue stands the test of time.”

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Natalie Merchant concludes her career-retrospective tour of the United States—Natalie Merchant: 3 Decades of Song—this weekend, with a performance at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, Washington, on Saturday, followed by a sold-out show at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre in Portland on Sunday. The Santa Barbara Independent, reviewing her show there last weekend, says that Merchant’s voice “was as enchanting as ever.”

The Natalie Merchant Collection—a deluxe ten-CD box set compiled by Merchant—is out now on Nonesuch. Mojo gives the set five stars, calling it “magnificent ... a definitive and absorbing celebration of an artist with a singular voice and vision.” The Daily Telegraph says, “Merchant is a rare breed: an artist who has never compromised, but instead evolved with integrity, thought, and meaning.”

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Conor Oberst, with The Felice Brothers as his backing band, brings his US Salutations tour east this weekend, playing The House of Blues in Boston tonight and Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park, New York, on Saturday, followed by a free set at Prescott Park in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sunday, as part of Prescott Park Arts Festival. The Independent gives Salutations five stars, calling it "the best work of the singer’s career."

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Rokia Traoré plays three sets at Cour du musée Calvet in Avignon, France, tonight, Saturday, and Sunday (and a fourth and final set on Monday), as part of Festival d'Avignon. Traoré released her latest album, Né So, on Nonesuch last year. "Traoré has made the album of her career,” exclaimed the Times. “This accessible yet sophisticated album offers its own defiance against hard times.”