Laurie Anderson leads a three-day residency at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in the days ahead, with three unique evening programs on the main stage and a number of related events this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The residency begins with a screening of Anderson’s film Heart of a Dog on Saturday afternoon. The Times of London says the film, her first feature in 30 years, is "a work of mastery: thought-provoking, smart, and incredibly moving." Nonesuch released the film’s soundtrack in 2015. The screening is free to ticket holders for the evening’s sold-out main-stage program, Anderson’s The Language of the Future, an ongoing exploration of the American narrative, a collection of songs and stories about contemporary culture that crosses borders between dreams, reality, and the world of information.

Sunday opens with the Irish premiere of Anderson’s Music for Dogs outdoors on the grounds of the NCH; interested canines and their companions are welcome to attend. The day continues with a conversation between Anderson and Irish Times journalist Tony-Clayton Lea, and concludes with the main-stage event Talking Book, a reading of stories from Anderson’s forthcoming book, All the Things That I Lost in the Flood.

Monday brings the residency to a close with a pre-concert performance of Anderson’s Quartet For Sol LeWitt and a piece written for Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future commissioning program, performed by members of Crash Ensemble, and a main-stage improvisational concert from Anderson, cellist Rubin Kodheli, and 10-string fiddler Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh.

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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Sam Amidon joins the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and violinist Pekka Kuusisto for three sets at the Ordway Concert Hall, this morning, tonight, and Saturday. The program features Amidon on fiddle, guitar, and vocals for a performance of traditional American folk songs, arranged by Amidon and label-mate/composer Nico Muhly. The program also includes works by Gabriel Kahane, Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius, and Magnus Lindberg.

Indy Week praises Amidon for his “unforgettable voice, an instrument in which technical sophistication tempers oaky roughness. Amidon's art-folk integrates elements of jazz and contemporary classical; he sounds like someone dreaming of Americana rather than studying it.”

The Following Mountain, Amidon’s new solo album, is due May 26 on Nonesuch and is available to preorder from iTunes and the Nonesuch Store with an instant download of the track "Juma Mountain." You can watch a lyric video for the song here.

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Dan Auerbach, whose second solo album, Waiting on a Song, is due June 2 on his new label, Easy Eye Sound, unveils songs from the new album in a sold-out show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight. The concert will air live on SiriusXM The Spectrum at 9 PM ET, with an encore broadcast on Saturday at midnight. Auerbach also performs from the album on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

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Pianist Jeremy Denk brings his Medieval to Modern program—six centuries of Western music, from the Medieval and Renaissance eras through Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to Stockhausen and Philip Glass—to La Jolla Presbyterian Church in California tonight. The Telegraph calls the program “exhilarating.”

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Rhiannon Giddens, who was on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross yesterday, concludes the current leg of her US tour, featuring music from her new album, Freedom Highway, with a performance at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City, the culminating concert in the esteemed American Songbook series’ season, on Saturday, and a concert at World Café Live Downstairs in Philadelphia on Sunday. The tour resumes in June and continues through the summer, with headlining shows and festival sets across the South and Midwest.

Giddens released Freedom Highway earlier this year to critical acclaim. The Guardian calls it a “powerful and timely set,” while Pitchfork exclaims: "Rhiannon Giddens emerges as a peerless and powerful voice in roots music.” Freedom Highway has also been nominated for Album of the Year, top honors at the 2017 Americana Honors & Awards.

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Audra McDonald performs at the State Theatre New Jersey’s 2017 Benefit Gala in New Brunswick on Saturday. McDonald brings her Tony Award–winning performance of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill to Wyndham’s Theatre in London on June 17.

New York Magazine praises McDonald’s voice as “a thing of beauty with its silvery shine and precise tonal focus that plays so provocatively off the word. Despite the vocal sophistication, every expressive gesture has a wonderful immediacy,” adding that her repertoire is “flawlessly organized, strung together like a rope of pearls without one jewel out of place.”

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Brad Mehldau and his trio—Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—launched a two-week European tour earlier this week, and bring the music to Norway this weekend: playing Hovedscenen Stavangeren in Stavanger tonight, followed by a sold-out show at Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo on Saturday.

The trio’s latest album, Blues and Ballads, was released last year on Nonesuch to critical acclaim. The New York Times called it "beautiful," while MOJO, in its four-star review, called the album a “spellbinding set whose salient features are subtlety and understatement. Sublime stuff."

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Pat Metheny continues his month-long tour of Europe with drummer Antonio Sánchez, pianist Gwilym Simcock, and bassist Linda Oh, playing at Istropolos in Bratislava, Slovakia, tonight, and Arena Ursynów in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday.

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Conor Oberst, with The Felice Brothers as his backing band, launched the second-leg of his US tour, in support of his new album, Salutations, yesterday, continuing with three shows in California this weekend: at The Fox in Oakland tonight, The Greek Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday, and The Observatory in San Diego on Sunday. Oberst, who was the musical guest on The Late Late Show with James Corden earlier this week, spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle ahead of tonight’s show; you can read the interview here.

Salutations, a companion piece to 2016's lauded Ruminations, was released in March to great acclaim. The Sunday Express exclaims: “The results are quite simply sublime. This is songwriting of the very highest quality, Oberst’s lyrics rarely less than astonishing. Wonderful." The Independent gives the album a perfect five stars, calling it "probably the best work of the singer’s career."

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Chris Thile resumes his role as host of A Prairie Home Companion with a sold-out show at the program’s home base at Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on Saturday. Joining Thile as special guests for the episode are Josh Ritter, Jon Batiste, and comedian Emma Willmann. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend, and fans around the world can watch the live broadcast online at prairiehome.org starting at 4:45 PM CT. “I am having so much fun,” Thile tells Minnesota Public Radio ahead of Saturday’s show; you can read what else he had to say here.

Thile has had a typically action-packed year so far, having already released a critically acclaimed duo album with Brad Mehldau ("a spine-tingling triumph," Irish Times), as well as an album of Bach Trios with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and bassist Edgar Meyer (“irresistible," Times of London). After concluding his inaugural season as host of A Prairie Home Companion next weekend, Thile embarks on a week-long duo tour with banjoist Béla Fleck, followed by a summer tour with his fellow Punch Brothers.

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Caetano Veloso and Brazilian samba singer Teresa Cristina continue their month-long tour of Europe, performing at Koningin Elisabethzaal in Antwerp tonight and Philharmonie in Luxembourg City on Sunday. The Los Angeles Review of Books recently published a career-spanning interview with Veloso, which you can read here.

Veloso and fellow legendary Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil’s live double album, Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live, was released on Nonesuch last year, as was Cristina’s live album and DVD, Canta Cartola.