Rhiannon Giddens continues her spring tour with two performances in California this weekend: at UC–Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall tonight and El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday. She and the band—fellow Carolina Chocolate Drops Hubby Jenkins, Malcolm Parson, and Rowan Corbett, along with Jamie Dick on drums and Jason Sypher on bass—continues north in the week ahead, taking the tour through Napa and Arkata before finishing the California leg with four shows at SFJAZZ Center. She recently spoke about the tour and her debut solo album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, with the San Francisco Chronicle, which calls the album “boldly eclectic,” for a profile you can read at sfgate.com.

Giddens has received wide acclaim for both the new album, which was released on Nonesuch earlier this year, and for the live show. “You could call her the greatest folk diva of our era. But diva implies that she is mainly a singer, and folk hardly describes what she does,” writes Forbes of her tour stop in New York City. She “is a mightier musical force than that. Besides a thrilling voice, she comes at you with a barrage of sounds and sights and movements from an arsenal of talents that will positively floor you. And then immediately bring you to your feet.”

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John Adams conducts his new piece Scheherazade.2 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Atlanta Symphony Hall and violinist Lelia Jacobowicz, for whom the piece was written, on Saturday. “Ms. Josefowicz, playing this formidable violin part from memory,” wrote the New York Times of the world premiere performance in March, “gave a stunning performance, by turns commanding and vulnerable, slashing and sensual.” The program also includes Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake and Respighi’s Pines of Rome.

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Sam Amidon’s European headlining tour comes to a close with two shows this weekend: at Buckleys Roots & Blues Joint in Oslo tonight and Islington Assembly Hall in London Sunday. He will return to the States for a number of festival appearances this summer, including a few with frequent collaborator Bill Frisell, who performed on Amidon’s latest album, Lily-O. The New York Times calls the album “hauntingly beautiful.”

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Laurie Anderson brings her multimedia performance piece The Language of the Future to Buenos Aires this weekend for two performances at Opera Theatre, tonight and Saturday. In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer prior to last weekend’s performance of the piece there, she called it “a series of adventure stories … departing from all my previous styles.”

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Timo Andres takes part in WQXR’s massive Beethoven Piano Sonata Marathon at BAM Fisher Hillman Studio in Brooklyn Saturday. The marathon is set to run for over 13 hours and features all 32 of the composer’s sonatas. Andres performs Sonata No. 21 in C Major, “Waldstein,” and Sonata No. 10 in G Major. Preceding the inaugural Beethoven Marathon in 2011, for which he also performed “Waldstein,” he remarked that he chose it because it is “popular, boldly experimental, and in the bright, familiar key of C major. It’s Beethoven at his most joyous—the joy of playing the piano, and of being alive.”

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Jeremy Denk joins the Alabama Symphony Orchestra for two performances of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham tonight and Saturday. The program also includes Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C Minor and Tragic Overture No. 81. Denk’s performance with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center last weekend was “exhilarating,” says the New York Times, “commanding” and “full of character.”

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Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell kicked off their intimate spring tour this week in San Francisco, which continues with performances at City Winery locations in Napa tonight and Chicago Sunday. As part of their "takeover" of SiriusXM Outlaw Country noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, they join Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale for an episode of The Buddy & Jim Show Saturday night, with an encore broadcast Sunday morning. Their new duo album, The Traveling Kind, comes out next week and is streaming in full till then as an NPR First Listen at npr.org. There are still a few days left to pre-order the album in the Nonesuch Store with an exclusive print autographed by Harris and Crowell.

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Kronos Quartet precedes Rhiannon Giddens’ performance at SFJAZZ Center next weekend with a Mother’s Day concert there in their hometown this Sunday morning. This family matinee celebrates the special day with a musical journey honoring families and traditions from around the world. Next week, the Quartet will be in New York City for performances in Brooklyn and at Queens New Music Festival.

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Audra McDonald continues her tour with performances at Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey, tonight, and at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Greenvale, New York, Saturday. Following last week’s performance at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times lauded her “lustrous lyric soprano.”

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The Brad Mehldau Trio closes out its sold-out residency at New York’s Village Vanguard this weekend with two sets each night, tonight through Sunday. The Trio has a long and rich history with the esteemed venue, having famously made a series of recordings there between 1996 and 2001, originally released on Warner Bros. and later, collected in a seven-CD box set called The Art of Trio Recordings, on Nonesuch Records. Nonesuch also released a new two-disc set the Trio recorded at the Vanguard called Live, in 2008, and a Nonesuch Store exclusive digital release of the Complete Friday Night Sets from that residency.