Conor Oberst kicked off a world tour, in support of his forthcoming album, Salutations, with a sold-out show in his hometown of Omaha last night. With The Felice Brothers as his backing band, Oberst continues with shows at Madrid Theatre in Kansas City tonight, Minglewood Hall in Memphis on Saturday, and Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa on Sunday.

Salutations, a companion piece to 2016's critically acclaimed Ruminations, is due next week on Nonesuch Records and can be heard here till then as an NPR First Listen. Uncut praises its “expanded palette, majoring on warm, Dylanesque waltzes and rolling country-rock…” The UK’s Sunday Times says Oberst is “one of the best songwriters around.” You can watch a video for album track "Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out" here and download that song (along with three others) now when you pre-order Salutations here.

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Composer John Adams recently celebrated his 70th birthday, and the New York Philharmonic celebrates Adams at 70, performing his Harmonielehre and Absolute Jest at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center this afternoon and Saturday. Alan Gilbert, in his final season as music director, leads the orchestra in the all-Adams program, which premiered last night.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, celebrates Adams at 70 as well with performances of his Slonimsky's Earbox at Symphony Center this afternoon and Saturday. The program also includes Stravinsky’s Petrushka and the world premiere of Salonen’s Cello Concerto, performed by Yo-Yo Ma.

On Sunday afternoon, members of the CSO join the Burnham Chamber Ensemble in performing Adams’s John's Book of Alleged Dances at the Art Institute of Chicago. The program also includes works by Haydn and Dvořák.

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Laurie Anderson presents an evening of words and music at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, on Saturday, joined by special guest, composer and cellist Rubin Kodheli. Anderson “retains a powerful love and belief in humanity, even after its stories are dismantled,” says the Quietus. Her “imagery and themes are lightly deployed, unobtrusive but perfectly chosen, as subtly telling as a series of haikus.”

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Devendra Banhart, currently touring North America with music from his new album, Ape in Pink Marble, heads East with shows at Metropolis in Montreal tonight, Port City Music Hall in Portland on Saturday, and Royale in Boston on Sunday. The singer/songwriter/guitarist concludes his tour with shows in Philadelphia, DC, and New York City next week. “I had a hunger, and I was going to jump off this diving board called art,” Banhart told the Chicago Tribune ahead of his sold-out show at Thalia Hall earlier this week. You can read what else he had to say here. The Washington Post, previewing the DC show, says the new album "feels as mysterious and inviting as a strange dream. The tempo dips to a reggae lull midway through while guitar solos delicately fill in spaces with carefully chosen notes."

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Jeremy Denk joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Karina Canellakis, in a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19, at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in Milwaukee this morning and Saturday evening. “Mozart’s music is voices,” the pianist tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “like an incredible plurality, like a democracy … He captures the whole gamut of human experience.” Also on the program are Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, Messiaen’s Hymn du Saint Sacrament, and Franck’s Le chasseur maudit.

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Rhiannon Giddens will perform on the Grand Ole Opry live from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville tonight. Folks around the world can listen live as the show streams via 650 AM WSM The Legend on opry.com. Giddens released her second solo album, Freedom Highway, last week, and can be seen on the television show Nashville Thursday nights on CMT.

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Pianist Richard Goode gives a solo recital, featuring works from Bach and Chopin, at the UDC Theatre of the Arts in Washington, DC, on Sunday afternoon. Goode has released two recordings of Bach partitas and a recording of Chopin works on Nonesuch. The Los Angeles Times calls his approach to Bach “a small miracle of sensitivity, expression and nuance.”

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Tigran Hamasyan, currently on a world tour featuring music from his forthcoming album, An Ancient Observer, due March 31, plays two sold-out sets at SubCulture in New York City tonight. He heads to Europe next weekend. Hamasyan recently spoke with the Huffington Post, which calls him “one of jazz’s most dynamic artists.” You can read what he has to say here.

Hamasyan recently unveiled the music video for "The Cave of Rebirth," a song from An Ancient Observer. You can watch it here and download the song, along with the previously released “Fides Tua,” when you pre-order the album on iTunes or the Nonesuch Store.

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Kronos Quartet joins the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André de Ridder, as part of the New Creations Festival at Roy Thompson Hall, on Saturday. The program features the world premieres of two works by composer Nicole Lizée commissioned through Kronos’s Fifty for the Future initiative. The San Francisco Chronicle writes: “Kronos Quartet has spent some four decades on the cutting edge of new music, forging a vast international network of collaborators, but the San Francisco string quartet’s global vision has rarely seemed as timely and urgent.”

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Lake Street Dive continues its US tour out West, featuring music from its 2016 Nonesuch debut album, Side Pony, with a sold-out show at the Boulder Theater in Colorado tonight, followed by a concert at Gryphon Theatre in Laramie, Wyoming, on Saturday.

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Audra McDonald performs with the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus at Jacoby Symphony Hall in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday. Children and folks of all ages can see McDonald on the big screen next week as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, in which she stars as Madame Garderobe, opens in theaters across the globe.

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Brad Mehldau launched a brief run of solo US dates yesterday, bringing his Three Pieces After Bach program from the Northeast to California, where he gives three performances this weekend: at Royce Hall in Los Angeles tonight, Weill Hall’s Music Center in Rohnert Park on Saturday, and Miner Auditorium at SFJAZZ on Sunday. The Guardian, in its four-star review of the program’s UK premiere, wrote: "[A]s conversations between jazz, classical music and pop have grown ever more fluent, Mehldau’s eclecticism has turned him into a major star … the balance of space and intensity was almost perfectly struck in this powerful and thought-provoking gig."

Mehldau was nominated for the Jazz FM Awards 2017 International Artist of the Year last week.

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Pat Metheny, the 2016 DownBeat Readers Poll Guitarist of the Year, is celebrated as this year’s Alternative Guitar Summit honoree at (le) Poisson Rouge in New York City tonight. The program features an exclusive live interview with Metheny, along with performances by Nels Cline Trio, Liberty Ellman and Miles Okazaki Quartet, Rez Abbasi Trio, Joel Harrison String Choir, Nir Felder Trio, Mike Moreno Trio and more. 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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The Staves continue their North American tour with two sold-out shows in Brooklyn this weekend: at the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight and Rough Trade on Saturday. Their tour concludes next week, with shows in Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. The trio recently released two new tracks, month which you can download from iTunes and the Nonesuch Store and listen to on Spotify and Apple Music.

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Chris Thile plays a sold-out solo set at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 2, in New York City on Sunday afternoon, ahead of a ten-city solo tour of Europe next week. “The most impressive musicians are often versatile, but few match the breadth of the brilliant mandolinist Chris Thile,” says the New York Times. “His versatility is apparent in the remarkable range of colors and shadings he produces on his instrument; phrases unfold with myriad subtle gradations.”

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Rokia Traoré plays Le PréO in Oberhausbergen, France, on Saturday, and Konserthuset, as part of Selam Festival Stockholm, in Sweden, on Sunday. She 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.”

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Caetano Veloso and Brazilian samba singer Teresa Cristina play the Orfeo Superdomo in Córdoba, Argentina, tonight, and Teatro Caupolicán in Santiago, Chile, on Sunday.

Veloso and fellow legendary Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil released a live double album, Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live, in the US last year. NPR says: "It's almost startling to encounter music like this—refined to an essence, simple, graceful and complete."

Cristina’s live album and DVD, Canta Cartola, was released on Nonesuch last year as well. Veloso, who was at that performance, says: “"With Cartola's songs, Teresa's artistry really shows. Her elegance on stage, the simultaneous spontaneity and decorum of every gesture, the humor, the tone, impeccable intonation—all combine in this true creator-singer, a genuine artist."