Emmylou Harris and Punch Brothers return to Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where Chris Thile also hosts Live From Here … Laurie Anderson is artist in residence in Surfers Paradise, Australia … Tyondai Braxton is in Calgary … David Byrne brings American Utopia to Prague … Rhiannon Giddens brings Freedom Highway to New England … Lake Street Dive plays Ottawa Jazz Fest … The Magnetic Fields take 50 Song Memoir to Toronto … Robert Plant, Joshua Redman are out West …
Emmylou Harris, Chris Thile, and Punch Brothers return to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado to celebrate the summer solstice at the 45th annual event this weekend.
Emmylou Harris makes her fifteenth appearance at the festival, performing on the main stage this evening.
Chris Thile, who is pictured at left opening the festival with its first performance yesterday morning, hosts a live broadcast of his public radio show, Live From Here, from the festival on Saturday afternoon, joined by Punch Brothers and special guests St. Paul & the Broken Bones, I'm With Her, and comedian Kirk Fox. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station, and fans around the world can watch live online at livefromhere.org starting at 3:30 PM MT.
Punch Brothers take the main stage on Sunday evening, followed by a performance at the Sheridan Opera House, taking their usual spot to close the festivities and the intimate, indoor NightGrass sets. The band releases a new album, All Ashore, in July. "It's a meditation on committed relationships in the present day," says Thile, "particularly in the present climate." All Ashore is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store now with an instant download of two songs and an exclusive, autographed print.
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Laurie Anderson is the International Artist in Residence at Home of the Arts in Surfers Paradise, Australia, this weekend. Her program began earlier this week with the Australian Premiere of her 1977 piece Quartet for Sol and the World Premiere of a new work, Stories in the Dark, and continues tonight with The Language of the Future, her ongoing exploration of the American narrative.
On Saturday afternoon, Anderson joins Tibetan singer Tenzin Choegya for Songs from the Bardo, a musical interpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Sunday begins with an early morning performance of Anderson’s Concert for Dogs, followed by an outdoor screening of her film Heart of a Dog, for which Nonesuch released the soundtrack. The program concludes that evening with a conversational, multimedia presentation of her new book, All the Things I Lost in the Flood.
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Tyondai Braxton joins fellow electronic artist Eucademix at Studio Bell Performance Hall in Calgary on Saturday, as part of Sled Island Music & Arts Festival.
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David Byrne brings his American Utopia world tour to Prague for a set on the ČT Park stage at Prague Exhibition Grounds on Saturday, as part of Metronome Festival.
“An unforgettably unique, imaginative, and kaleidoscopically entrancing spectacle of music, dance, and theatre,” exclaims the Telegraph’s five-star review of this week’s London show. “Even for an icon like Byrne, this was something special.” “Daringly ambitious and full of joy,” says the Evening Standard in its five-star review. “So different, so memorable, so much fun.” NME declares that it “may just be the best live show of all time.”
Rolling Stone includes American Utopia in its list of “50 Best Albums of 2018 So Far,” calling it “some of the most exciting music Byrne has made in years."
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Rhiannon Giddens brings her Freedom Highway tour to northern New England for a sold-out show at Fuller Hall at St. Johnsbury Academy in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, tonight, and a performance at Colonial Theatre in Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
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Lake Street Dive continues its North American Free Yourself Up tour at Marion Dewar Plaza in Ottawa on Saturday, as part of the Ottawa Jazz Festival. “I think the success of this band was that we're all really enamored of a four-person band,” singer Rachael Price tells PopMatters in a recent interview. “Everybody's contributing something, no one's replaceable. It has to be these people. It only exists in this form.” You can read what else she had to say here.
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The Magnetic Fields bring 50 Song Memoir to Toronto over two nights at Elgin Theatre—songs 1–25 tonight and songs 26–50 on Saturday as part of the Luminato Festival. The Times of London calls the stage extravaganza, directed by José Zayas, “a life affirming portrait of a life in song.”
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Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters continue their North American Carry Fire tour out West this weekend, performing at Harveys Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena in Stateline, Nevada, on Saturday, followed by a set at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Sunday, as part of Arroyo Seco Weekend.
“You’ve got to subscribe to nonsense,” Plant said in an interview on House of Strombo while in Toronto for the tour. You can watch the conversation, about Carry Fire, Led Zeppelin, the World Cup, life on the road, and more, here.
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Joshua Redman and his Quartet—pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson—play the Bing Concert Hall in Stanford on Saturday and Boulder Theater in Boulder on Sunday.
Redman and another quartet—drummer Brian Blade, bassist Scott Colley, and trumpeter Ron Miles—released Still Dreaming last month on Nonesuch. You can watch a video of the group performing the non-album track “Walls-Bridges” at last year's Jazz in Marciac festival here.
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