Michael Daves celebrates last week’s release of his new album, Orchids and Violence, on Nonesuch, with a series of three concerts in New York City. The festivities began with a sold-out show at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan last night, and continue at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn tonight and the Bell House in Brooklyn tomorrow.

The album comprises bluegrass and electric versions of mostly old-time material. In the first set each show, Daves presents the bluegrass material with Punch Brothers’ Noam Pikelny on banjo, Brittany Haas on fiddle, Jake Jolliff on mandolin, Larry Cook on bass, and Jen Larson on harmony vocals. The second set will feature the electric material with Daves joined by experimental rock drummer Kid Millions and electric bassist Jessi Carter.

Orchids and Violence is “a roots-music master class, a brilliant example of old modes reinhabited with flair,” says the New York Times. “The identical track listing makes for a good comparison study—and to his credit, it can be hard to pick which version of a tune is best.”

Orchids and Violence is available now via the Nonesuch Store; the vinyl edition, Violence and Orchids, due May 6, is available to pre-order.

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John Adams's piece Scheherazade.2 is performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, led by David Robertson, and violinist Leila Josefowicz at the Sydney Opera House tonight, in the final show of the piece’s three-night Australian premiere. Adams wrote the piece for Josefowicz, who gave it its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic in 2014. This "dramatic symphony" reflects on the hardship and unfair treatment of women throughout history, with the violinist representing the legendary Scheherazade.

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Laurie Anderson takes up residency this weekend at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, for three sold-out premiere performances of Language of the Future: Letters to Jack, tonight, tomorrow night, and Sunday afternoon. Language of the Future is Anderson's ongoing exploration of the American narrative and how it is told; a collection of songs and stories about contemporary culture and crosses borders between dreams, reality, and the elusive world of information. Letters to Jack is the latest chapter and references Anderson’s childhood correspondence with John F. Kennedy. She will be joined by cellist Rubin Kodhel as a special guest for all three performances.

“I’ve never had the nerve to do so much improvisation as I am now,” Anderson tells the Washington Post in a preview of the weekend’s performances. “Things work or don’t work for much stranger reasons than I understand. I love that about being an artist.”

Anderson’s new film, Heart of a Dog, for which Nonesuch released the soundtrack, is now available from The Criterion Collection for a limited time, on iTunes and VUDU, through March 29.

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Jon Brion joins New York's Wordless Music Orchestra and the Los Angeles–based wild Up ensemble, led by conductor Ryan McAdams, for the world premiere live performance of his score to Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love at a special screening of the film at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on Saturday. Nonesuch Records released the soundtrack to the film in 2002.

In advance of this weekend's event, Brion spoke with KPCC's The Frame about his music and career; you can hear the conversation at scpr.org. There is also a new 20-minute video essay about Punch-Drunk Love from The Directors Series available on Indiewire.

Brion and the orchestra will bring the music and film to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn next weekend.

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Randy Newman plays the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas, tomorrow night, presented by KUTX Live. Newman is featured in a career-spanning profile in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. "The reality emerges that Newman actually has cracked the Great American Songbook," says writer David Kamp, "if not in quite the way he imagined when young."

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Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters kick off their March tour of the American South with two stops in Florida: at the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival tonight and the St. Augustine Amphitheatre on Sunday. Additional stops include Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, culminating in a show at ACL Live at Moody Theater in Austin. As noted earlier this week in the Nonesuch Journal, Plant will stay on in Austin for one more day, to tape a show in the Moody Theater for future broadcast on PBS’s Austin City Limits.

"I'm always eager to return to the hospitality of the Southern states," Plant said in a statement. "Towns and cities that hold fond memories for me personally, places that gave birth to so much of the music I love."

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Rokia Traoré continues to tour France in support of her recently released album, Né So (Home), performing at the Maison de la Culture in Amiens on Saturday.

Traoré’s French tour continues through next weekend and will be followed by stops in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Geneva. She heads to the United States later this month for shows in New York City, DC, and Savannah.