Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile come together in concert for the first time tonight at New York's Poisson Rouge for a unique benefit concert for the Obama campaign, presented by the Wordless Music series. In keeping with the cross-genre spirit of the series, Mehldau will perform his first-ever solo recital devoted to classical composers, with music of Bach and Brahms, and select compositions of his own. Thile takes time out of his tour with bassist Edgar Meyer to perform works by Bach as well as his own. Seating is extremely limited; doors open at 10:30 PM and the concert begins promptly at 11 PM. For tickets, visit lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com.

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Works by John Adams and Frederic Rzewski are on the program for Music for Change, a fund-raising concert for the Obama campaign to be held at An die Musik Live! in Baltimore tomorrow at 1 PM; it kicks off the fourth season the Evolution Contemporary Music Series and will be followed by a wine reception, with voter registration and information for prospective volunteers.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, led by Leonard Slatkin, performs Adams's 1996 orchestral piece Slonimsky's Earbox, along with Dvořák's "New World" Symphony, at their resident venue, Heinz Hall, tonight. Also tonight, Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine gets another performance tonight at La Scala in Milan, Italy, in a concert by the Orchestra Sinfonica della Scala under Daniele Gatti.

The San Francisco Ballet takes its North American tour, with a program that pairs Mark Morris's new work Joyride, set to Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony, with Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, among others, to New York for its weeklong residency at City Center. This program runs Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and next Thursday.

The American Midwest confirms the recent assertion by the Los Angeles Times's Mark Swed that "John Adams is the voice of America" when Walter Reuther Central High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, hosts a performance on Saturday of The Wound-Dresser by the school ensemble, under the direction of Miriam Burns, and featuring baritone Kamel Boutros.

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Laurie Anderson is back in the States after a journey to the top of the world as part of the Cape Farewell's 2008 Disko Bay Expedition, in which dozens of artists, musicians, and scientists traveled to Greenland's Disko Bay to draw attention to climate change. She starts up the next leg of her Homeland tour tonight at the Cullen Theater in Houston, Texas, where she participated in a special question-and-answer session last night at the Menil Collection, and then at the McFarlin Auditorium in Dallas on Sunday.

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Louis Andriessen's 1991 piece for jazz singer and ensemble, M is for Man, Music, Mozart, receives a rare live performance in a concert by the George Heriot's Contemporary Performance Group tonight at the 380-year-old George Heriot's School in Edinburgh, Scotland.

On Sunday, De Stijl, which can be heard both on a Nonesuch recording with M is for Man and as Part III of the 1985 piece De Materie, will be performed the Dresdner Sinfoniker, led by Andrea Molino, with featured speaker Beppie Blanckert, at the Festspielhaus Hellerau in its hometown of Dresden, Germany. The performance is the closing event of the Festspielhaus's monthlong Music and Film series, and will be paired with clips from Stanley Kubrick's seminal film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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The Black Keys, who recently announced that they would be joining fellow Akron natives Devo for an Obama benefit concert next Friday, October 17, at the Akron Civic Theatre, play their hometown this weekend as well. After a stop at the Madison Theatre in Covington, Kentucky, tonight, Pat and Dan, along with openers the Royal Bangs, head to Akron for a Saturday night show at EJ THomas Hall.

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David Byrne brought Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno to San Francisco earlier this week for two shows at Davies Symphony Hall, "delivering a high-energy show that had the stage and the aisles filled with ecstatic dancers," reports area station KTVU. He heads West this weekend with a show at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts in Park City, Utah, Saturday, and another at the Buell Theatre in Denver, Colorado, on Sunday.

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Bill Frisell's four-night residency at Yoshi's in Oakland with fellow guitarist Russell Malone got under way last night and continues through the weekend. Jim Hall, who was scheduled to perform with Frisell, will not appear, due to illness. "Jim Hall has been such an important inspiration, teacher, friend to both of us," says Frisell. "Russell once said ... that Jim was like a big tree that had grown up and that all of us guitarists who came along after him are now able to sit down in the shade underneath. I'm so thankful that Russell is available on such short notice to do these concerts and can't think of anyone I'd rather being doing this with. We all wish Jim a speedy recovery."

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Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble are in Sydney, Australia, this weekend performing Book of Longing, his recent work based on the poetry and images of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, at the Syndey Opera House Saturday and Sunday. "Listening to what Phil has done has provided me with a very special and rarefied pleasure," says Cohen. "This is just like Bach asking if he could use your lyrics." The latter performance will be preceded by an artist talk. Glass heads further south next week for the Melbourne Festival (a co-sponsor of the Sydney performance), in which he and Patti Smith will participate in a dedication to poet Allen Ginsberg.

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After a stellar house concert in New York this past Monday to benefit the Obama campaign, k.d. lang is back on tour, beginning with two shows in California this weekend. She performs at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara on Saturday, followed by a special KCRW Sessions performance and interview, with host Chris Douridas, at the Malibu Performing Arts Center.

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The Magnetic Fields kick off their fall tour tonight at the State Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The show is "highly recommended" by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, which declares:

The Magnetic Fields set out to make an album "inspired by" the Jesus & Mary Chain, but its new disc Distortion wound up far better than any the "Just Like Honey"–making Brits ever put out. Cult-adored and critically acclaimed since their 1999 masterpiece 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt and Co. have grown equally potent as a live band.

Before the concert, they'll stop by the studios of Minnesota Public Radio's The Current studios this afternoon to chat with host Mary Lucia and perform a few songs live. Tune in to the broadcast, beginning at 3 PM CT, at 93.9 FM in the Twin Cities, or online at minnesota.publicradio.org. The tour continues at the Capitol Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, Saturday night, before heading to Texas early next week.

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Randy Newman continues his Harps and Angels tour in the Midwest this week, with stops in a different town each night. After last night's show at the Center for the Performing Arts in Bloomington, Indiana, Randy heads to Waukegan, Illinois, north of Chicago, to play the Genesee Theatre tonight; then to Kansas City, Missouri, tomorrow night, at the Folly Theater; and finally to Des Moines, Iowa, at the Hoyt Sherman Theatre.

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Choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Rosas dance company continues its European tour with Steve Reich Evening, featuring several of her pieces set to music by Steve Reich, performed by the Ictus Ensemble. The show heads to the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, France, tonight and tomorrow nights, before heading to the choreographer's homeland of Belgium next week.