Happy May Day! Sam Amidon kicks off a solo tour of Europe with three performances in the Netherlands this weekend: Vessel 11 in Rotterdam tonight, Here Comes the Summer festival in Vlieland Saturday, and Poppodium Grenswerk in Venlo Sunday. The tour, which follows Amidon’s recent tour with Sharon Van Etten, will take him through Northern Europe and the United Kingdom, culminating at Islington Assembly Hall in London on May 10. He will perform at several US festivals this summer, including a free set with guitarist Bill Frisell at the just-announced Celebrate Brooklyn! series in June.

Amidon’s latest album, Lily-O, on which Frisell performs, was released on Nonesuch Records in September. The album "showcases his ability to transform music," says NPR. "Every little unexpected twist shimmers with originality ... His highly personal approach opens a window on the American past and lets us feel it like nothing else around." The New York Times calls it "hauntingly beautiful." MusicOMH calls it "gorgeous."

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Laurie Anderson brings her multimedia performance piece The Language of the Future to McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, tonight. At a recent performance of this piece, in Nashville, Anderson “transfixed her audience,” reports the Nashville Scene. Anderson spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer about this weekend’s performance; you can read the article at philly.com.

She takes the piece to Buenos Aires next week, after which she heads to Germany and the United Kingdom before returning to the US for four nights of performances of The Language of the Future at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco at the end of May.

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The Arcs, like millions of others, are likely to be watching the big Floyd Mayweather / Manny Pacquiao boxing match Saturday night. Inspired by the match, the band releases a 7" with the songs "Stay in My Corner" b/w "Tomato Can" that day, exclusively in independent retail stores.

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Devendra Banhart gives an intimate solo show at Taos Mesa Brewing in Taos, New Mexico, on Saturday night. Banhart’s Nonesuch debut album, Mala, was released in 2013.

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Jeremy Denk performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall in New York City Sunday night. The program includes two works by Beethoven—Quintet in E-flat major for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, and Trio in B-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Cello—as well as Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano, “Hommage à Brahms.” Denk had similarly paired two sets of Ligeti Études with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 on his Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, from 2012. “Denk moves swiftly between musical universes by nestling the Beethoven between Ligeti selections,” wrote NPR of the album, “and the effect is provocative, even unsettling. And yet, in the Denkian universe in which this album lives, it makes perfect sense.”

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Rhiannon Giddens continues her spring tour this weekend with performances at Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado, tonight, and Discovery Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska, Sunday.

Giddens’ recent show in Minneapolis “proved that she is a great American vocal treasure,” raved the StarTribune, “probably the best pure and versatile American voice to come along since Alison Krauss.” The concert, writes reviewer Jon Bream, “felt like an extraordinary jubilee of American music by a great new voice—maybe like seeing the great opera star Marian Anderson let her hair down.”

While in town for the show, Giddens stopped by the studios at Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current for a Radio Heartland session. She discussed her debut solo album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, and performed songs from the album, a Carolina Chocolate Drops tune, and more. You can listen to the in-studio session at thecurrent.org.

The tour continues in Alaska before heading down the West Coast next week.

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Richard Goode performs at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Vlahcevic Concert Hall in Richmond Saturday night. “Taste and elegance are hallmarks of Mr. Goode’s playing,” said the New York Times in a review of his performance at Carnegie Hall last weekend, “and those qualities were in abundance.” Goode is joined by soprano Sarah Shafer for Saturday’s performance.

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Emmyou Harris and Rodney Crowell perform on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight. They join in on a special performance of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" on one of Letterman's last show, helping to bid the show's host a fond farewell.

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Audra McDonald, following Wednesday night’s stellar concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City, performs at Street and Davis Performance Hall in Blacksburg, Virginia, tonight. McDonald was recently named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.

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Natalie Merchant gives two performances at Toronto’s Koerner Hall this weekend, tonight and Saturday. Tonight’s sold-out concert features songs from Merchant’s recently released self-titled album plus favorites from throughout her career. On Saturday afternoon, she gives a family concert of music from her 2010 Nonesuch debut album, Leave Your Sleep, in which she set to music the works of such poets as Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Graves. Merchant also teamed up with award-winning children’s book illustrator Barbara McClintock to create a picture book based on the album.

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Joshua Redman joins Cornell University’s Wind Ensemble at Bailey Hall in Ithaca, New York, Sunday for the premiere of Wynton Marsalis and James Spinazzola’s new arrangement of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. The program also includes Gordon Jacob’s The Earle of Oxford’s March, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Rhosymedre arranged by Walter Beeler, and Julie Giroux’s La Mezquita de Cordoba. The Bad Plus Joshua Redman begins a tour in June in support of its forthcoming self-titled album, available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

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Steve Reich takes part in the Minimal Glasgow festival’s New Music Seminar in Glasgow, Scotland, this afternoon. He and Angela Dixon, Chief Executive of Saffron Hall, with whom Reich has collaborated on celebrations of his work at the Barbican, speak with Glasgow City of Music Director Svend Brown, reflecting on their experiences together. On Sunday, Reich is in attendance at Colin Currie Ensemble’s performance of his Music for Pieces of Wood, Quartet, and Music for 18 Musicians, at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The ensemble also performs four of Reich’s pieces at St David’s Hall in Cardiff, England, on Friday: Clapping Music, Sextet, Mallet Quartet, and Quartet.