Kronos Quartet’s fifth-annual hometown festival, Kronos Festival 2019, began at SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco last night and continues over the weekend.

The Quartet is joined by CocoRosie, Jherek Bischoff, the San Francisco Girls Chorus with conductor Valérie Sainte-Agathe, the Dragon Saxophone Quintet, and filmmaker Sam Green for tonight's program, which includes works by Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Sigur Rós, Konono Nº1, and Bischoff. Green narrates a screening of Por Vida!, a documentary short which Kronos will live score with music by Todd Griffin.

There’s a full day of music and discussion on Saturday, including a Kronos family concert, a free talk and performance led by Valérie Sainte-Agathe—this year’s artist-in-residence—and a conversation with the American Folklife Center’s Todd Harvey focused on folk legend Pete Seeger.

The festival culminates with a Kronos concert Saturday night: the group is joined by Sainte-Agathe, Sam Amidon, Meklit, Lee Knight, Brian Carpenter, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus for the world premiere of new works from Diabaté, Jacob Garchik, and Aleksander Kościów. Amidon joins to perform traditional tunes he performed with Kronos for its 2017 album, Folk Songs, arranged by Nico Muhly.

---

Attacca Quartet performs music from Caroline Shaw’s Orange at Harlem Stage in New York City tonight, in celebration of National Chamber Music Month. Orange, released last month on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records, features six of Shaw’s pieces for string quartet performed by Attacca Quartet. BBC Radio 3 calls it “completely gorgeous in so many ways … It hits you everywhere, all at once.” “A love letter to the string quartet," says NPR. “[W]hen you hear all the imaginative sounds on Orange, you know you're listening to the voice of a strong composer.”

---

John Adams conducts the LA Phil New Music Group and Mivos String Quartet in four LA Phil-commissioned world premieres at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Saturday: Donnacha Dennehy’s Overcasting, Freya Waley-Cohen’s Changeling, Jeffrey Mumford’s ...amid still and floating depths, and Christopher Stark’s Cascade.

---

Pianist Jeremy Denk leads the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in performing Mozart at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on Saturday. The program includes Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto No. 14, Rondo in A Minor for solo piano, and Piano Concerto No. 25.

Denk can be heard performing Mozart and many other composers on his new double album, c. 1300–c. 2000. “A thoughtfully curated, beautifully played, brilliantly annotated recital,” raves BBC Radio 3’s Record Review. The Sunday Times calls it “thrilling and deft.”

---

Emmylou Harris joins Brandi Carlile and Neko Case for Carlile’s Echoes Through the Canyon birthday concert at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state on Saturday.

---

The Brad Mehldau Trio—Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—continues its tour of Asia in Tokyo this weekend, performing at Suntory Hall tonight and International Forum Hall on Saturday. The tour concludes on Monday at Tokyo’s Yomiuri Otemachi Hall.

Brad Mehldau’s new album, Finding Gabriel, is out now. Record Collector gives it five stars, calling it “stupendous”; Mojo calls it “magnificent.” Mehldau's 2004 Nonesuch debut album, Live in Tokyo, will make its vinyl debut 15 years later, this September 13. The vinyl edition, made in partnership with Run Out Groove, comprises the original album's eight tracks plus an additional seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition, and is available to pre-order here.

---

Gaby Moreno continues her month-long North American tour as special guest of David Gray with shows at The Met in Philadelphia tonight and Wang Theatre in Boston on Saturday.

---

Mountain Man returns to its alma mater, Bennington College in Vermont—where the trio first met and sang together—to deliver the commencement address to the graduating class of 2019. From there, the band resumes its US tour in New York, bringing music from its 2018 Nonesuch debut, Magic Ship, to Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock on Saturday and Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center in Westhampton Beach on Sunday.

---

Saxophonist Joshua Redman joins the Reis Demuth Wiltgen Trio in Europe this weekend, performing at Parc des Expositions du Comminges in Villeneuve de Rivière, France, tonight, for Jazz en Comminges; Great Hall in Ennenda, Switzerland on Saturday, for Jazz in Glarus; and Opderschmelz in Dudelange, Luxembourg, on Sunday.

The Joshua Redman Quartet—drummer Gregory Hutchinson, bassist Reuben Rodgers, and pianist Aaron Goldberg—released its first album in nearly two decades, Come What May, earlier this year on Nonesuch Records.

---

Composer Steve Reich’s Different Trains is performed by the New York Philharmonic at The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Sunday. The performance is part of a new series entitled Sound ON, hosted and curated by violinist Nadia Sirota. Among several other composers, Sunday’s program also features work by Caroline Shaw.

Nonesuch Records' 1989 recording of Different Trains, the Grammy Award winner for Best Contemporary Composition that year, and Electric Counterpoint is available again on vinyl for the first time in more than twenty-five years. The New York Times declared Different Trains “a work of such originality that ‘breakthrough’ seems the only possible description.”

This weekend is also the last opportunity to see Reich Richter Pärt at The Shed in New York City. The live performance-exhibition pairs works by Gerhard Richter with a new composition for large ensemble by Reich and extant work by Arvo Pärt, and is performed this weekend by Ensemble Signal.

---

Chris Thile hosts his public radio show, Live From Here, from Wolf Trap’s Filene Center in Vienna, Virginia, on Saturday, with special guests Guster, Adia Victoria, Madison Cunningham, and comedian Matt Braunger. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend and around the world via livefromhere.org, starting at 5:45 PM ET.

Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price and Gabriel Kahane were on the program last weekend; you can watch their performances from the episode here.

---

Yola concludes her tour of the UK, featuring music from her Dan Auerbach–produced debut album, Walk Through Fire, at Colston Hall in her hometown of Bristol on Saturday. Mojo gives Walk Through Fire four stars, calling it “a commanding solo debut which turns Yola’s stories of heartbreak and defiance into widescreen, Dusty-styled ballads.”