Kronos Quartet is joined by Sam Amidon and others for its Music for Change: Pete Seeger @ 100 program at the FreshGrass Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, tonight. As recipient of the 2019 FreshGrass Composition Commission, Kronos honors the late singer-songwriter's centenary with a concert of his songs, joined by Amidon, who performs on the 2017 Kronos album Folk Songs, as well as Aoife O’Donovan, composer Jacob Garchik, and others. Kronos also brings the program to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco on October 4.

Amidon returns to FreshGrass to perform songs from his latest album, The Following Mountain, on Sunday afternoon, and in between heads up to his home state of Vermont for a concert at Club Metronome in Burlington on Saturday.

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The Black Keys returned to the stage for the first time in five years last night, kicking off their thirty-eight date North American "Let's Rock" tour. They play a headlining set on The Downtown Stage at the Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas on Sunday and pick up their months-long tour with special guests Modest Mouse and more at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Monday. The band’s ninth studio album, "Let's Rock," debuted at number 1 on the US Top Current Album Chart upon its release in June. “From top to bottom, the 12-track 'Let’s Rock' holds tight to captivating instrumentation, with guitar at the center,” says the Associated Press. “The Black Keys are rock royalty and to the relief of many, they aren’t quite ready to relinquish their reign.”

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Composer John Adams’s I Still Dance—a new work co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony and Carnegie Hall—was given its world premiere by the SFS, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, at Davies Symphony Hall last night, with performances continuing tonight, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. The program also includes Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Rhenish, as well as a pre-concert talk between Adams and pianist Sarah Cahill.

Elsewhere, the composer’s Scheherazade.2 is performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Ward Stare and featuring violinist Leila Josefowicz, at Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York, on Saturday. The program also includes works by Steve Reich, Mason Bates, and Cindy Mctee.

Nonesuch released the first recording of Scheherazade.2, performed by Josefowicz and the St. Louis Symphony led by David Robertson, in 2017. The “cinematic music goes a long way in unfolding a potent drama,” says NPR. “The fierceness and vulnerability Leila Josefowicz expresses contributes to an award-caliber performance.”

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Pianist Jeremy Denk gives a solo recital at Bucknell University’s Weis Center for the Performing Arts in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, on Sunday afternoon, performing works by Bach, Ligeti, Liszt, Berg, and Schumann. His new album, c. 1300–c. 2000, which includes works by Bach, Schumann, and many others, is “a thoughtfully curated, beautifully played, brilliantly annotated recital,” raves BBC Radio 3’s Record Review. Denk performed Ligeti’s Études on his 2012 Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven.

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Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger is performed by Alarm Will Sound, led by Alan Pierson, along with soprano Katherine Manley and sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston tonight, following performances in Princeton and New York City earlier this week. Proceeds from tonight’s presentation go to Oxfam America and its efforts to end poverty. The concert is preceded by a discussion between Pierson and Fatema Sumar, Vice President of Global Programs for Oxfam America, moderated by Alarm Will Sound's Gavin Chuck.

Nonesuch released the premiere recording of Dennehy's The Hunger performed by tonight’s artists last month. The Hunger “bears hearing and rehearing,” said the Washington Post. “It is powerful, and it makes a statement.” The New Yorker calls it “arrestingly beautiful.”

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Rhiannon Giddens began an extensive US tour in support of her new album, there is no Other, with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi in Alabama last night, continuing with sold-out shows at City Winery in Atlanta tonight and Nashville tomorrow, and Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sunday.

Giddens stopped by NPR with Turrisi and bassist Jason Sypher to perform a Tiny Desk Concert, which you can watch in its entirety here.

there is no Other “is acoustic roots music at its most glorious,” exclaims Uncut, “and Giddens is fast becoming the genre’s brightest star in the firmament.” The album has made Rolling Stone’s list of The 50 Best Albums of 2019 So Far, and American Songwriter calls Giddens “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”

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The Brad Mehldau Trio—Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—perform at Lantaren Venster in Rotterdam on Saturday and Henry Le Boeuf Hall in Brussels on Sunday.

Mehldau's 2004 Nonesuch debut album, Live in Tokyo, was released on vinyl last week. 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.

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Mountain Man closes out its Magic Ship tour with a concert at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, North Carolina, on Saturday, as special guest of Mandolin Orange. The New Yorker named Magic Ship, the trio’s first album in eight years, one of the ten best albums of 2018, saying: “It’s heavy with acquired wisdom, and with vocals so haunting they’ll make you shiver.” NPR calls the record “a timeless space where three voices are all you need to be transported someplace wonderful.”

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Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters bring music from his latest album, Carry Fire, and more to Ruoff Home Mortgage Center in Indianapolis tonight, for Outlaw Music Festival, and Highland Festival Grounds at the KY Expo Center in Louisville on Saturday, for Bourbon & Beyond Festival.

“Carry Fire further extends Plant’s voyage and reaffirms his mastery,” said New York magazine's Vulture. “There’s always been something deeply enviable about Plant’s voice, which summons, more or less without effort, a sense of sustained astonishment ... Plant has come into his own.”

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Chris Thile performs at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, New York, on Saturday. His latest solo album, 2017's Thanks for Listening, is a collection of studio recordings, produced by Thomas Bartlett, of ten songs originally written as Songs of the Week on what is now his public radio show Live From Here. The show returns next week with guests Dawes, Jamila Woods, John Cameron Mitchell, and Ann Patchett.

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Yola brings music from her Dan Auerbach–produced debut album, Walk Through Fire, to the Midwest this weekend: she plays Codfish Hollow in Maquoketa, Iowa, tonight; joins Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, and others for Farm Aid at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, on Saturday; and plays Bluebird Nightclub in Bloomington, Indiana, on Sunday.

Walk Through Fire has been named one of The Best Albums of 2019 (So Far) by NPR Music, which says it’s an “exhilarating” album that “encapsulates country-soul lustiness, plushly orchestrated pop transcendence and a range of expression both subtle and striking.”