The Staves have been nominated for two UK Americana Awards: UK Album of the Year for If I Was and UK Song of the Year for the album track "Black & White." (You can watch a live take on "Black & White" here.) The awards will be presented to the winners at the inaugural UK Americana Awards show at St John at Hackney on Wednesday, February 3, 2016. The band will perform at the Firefly Festival in Delaware in June.

Longtime Nonesuch Records senior executive David Bither has been named Co-President of the label, effective January 1, 2016. Bither, who joined Nonesuch in 1995 as Senior Vice President, has played an instrumental role in guiding the label's A&R direction and forging its distinctive culture. The move comes in the wake of the announcement at the end of September that current Nonesuch President Bob Hurwitz will be gradually stepping away from the day-to-day running of the company. Once the transition is complete in 2017, Bither will become sole President, with Hurwitz serving as Chairman Emeritus, continuing to work with selected Nonesuch artists as an executive producer.

Laurie Anderson was a guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. She shares stories from her new film and album, Heart of a Dog. You can hear their conversation here. The film is now playing at theaters across the United States, opening at additional theaters this weekend in San Jose, San Francisco, Bethesda, Fayetteville, Seattle, and more.

Rhiannon Giddens has made a video performing Edith Piaf's beloved song "La Vie en Rose." "This is for Paris, and Beirut, and Kenya, and Charleston, and so many others; for countless innocent people devastated by terrorism—which is just a word for organized hatred and inhumanity," says Giddens. "We have to keep seeing the world in shades of rose—we have to keep hoping for peace and working for change and believing that with our art, our love, our knowledge, and most of all, our empathy and understanding for our fellow human beings, we can make a difference." You can watch it here.

Lake Street Dive, whose Nonesuch Records debut album, Side Pony, will be released on February 19, 2016, have just announced a three-week tour of Europe and the UK for April. The shows begin at the Trix Club in Antwerp on April 8 and includes stops in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, and the UK, culminating in a night at Whelans in Dublin on April 28. Tickets go on sale this Friday This tour follows the band's previously announced North American tour in February and March. Tickets for the North American tour go on sale on Thursday.

Brad Mehldau's new box set, 10 Years Solo Live, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. The show takes "a peek into the creative process of one of modern music’s most innovative thinkers," says host Ari Shapiro. "The set includes Mehldau's vivid reimaginings of works by the Beatles, Radiohead, Brahms, and Thelonius Monk," says reviewer Tom Moon. "That's a wide range of music, yet he never sounds out of his element ... [S]ome things come through right away: his fluid technique, his instinct for reframing melodies, his gift for spinning epic narratives out of shards and fragments. Here's what's most mind-blowing: he's doing this live, in the moment, unscripted, in front of an audience." Listen to the review here.

Paul Thomas Anderson's film Junun gets LA premiere … The Arcs play Paris … Ry Cooder plays Carnegie Hall with Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White … Rhiannon Giddens tours US Northeast … Tigran Hamasyan performs in France … James Farm tours Europe, UK … Brad Mehldau Trio plays Pacific Northwest … Youssou N’Dour concludes North American tour … Chris Thile plays California ... and more ...

Brad Mehldau's new 10 Years Solo Live is now available as a four-CD box set and digitally. The set, which was first released as an eight-LP vinyl box set last month, is culled from 19 live recordings made over a decade of the pianist's European solo concerts and "contains some of the most impressive pianism he has captured on record," says the New York Times. He is "a player with a stunning virtuosity and daring ability to mine far reaches of improvisation," raves All About Jazz. This is "a beautiful release/box from a unique pianist who continually shows what the piano can do." "Brad Mehldau is a magician," exclaims Record Collector. "Hearing the pianist in full flow during a live performance is ... nothing less than an awe-inspiring experience."

Kronos Quartet and Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) will present its second-annual hometown music festival, Kronos Festival 2016: Explorer Series, at SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, February 4–7, 2016. The festival features seven concerts over four days connecting area audiences to a wide range of musical voices and traditions from around the world. With virtuoso pipa player Wu Man as its artist-in-residence, the festival includes more than a dozen works, including four world premieres, two US premieres, four West Coast premieres, and two SF premieres.

Lake Street Dive's Nonesuch Records debut album, Side Pony, will be released on February 19, 2016. The four band members worked with Nashville-based producer Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Secret Sisters) on the record, which is available to pre-order now with an instant download of the album track "Call off Your Dogs"; you can hear the track here. Tour dates to support Side Pony begin February 22 in Phoenix and include stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, New York, and more; tickets go on sale Thursday, November 19.

Junun, the new album from composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, and a group of Indian musicians known as the Rajasthan Express, due next Friday, November 20, is streaming in full till then as an NPR First Listen at npr.org/music. The album's "real magic comes when the brass section is unleashed," says NPR's Tom Pryor; some tracks "practically jump out of the speakers and command listeners to dance."

St Germain, whose new, self-titled album—his first in 15 years—was released last month, embarks on an extensive tour, beginning this week in Europe and coming to North America in the spring. The latter starts at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2016, and includes stops in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, St. Paul, Denver, and Vancouver, with more to be announced soon; tickets go on sale this Friday, November 13. St Germain has also unveiled a video for the album track "Sittin' Here," which you can watch here.