Audra McDonald will take part in a very special performance, "A Celebration of American Creativity," at The White House tonight, as part of the series In Performance at the White House. They will join President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and performers including Buddy Guy, Queen Latifah, Keb' Mo', Smokey Robinson, Esperanza Spalding, Brian Stokes Mitchell, James Taylor, and Usher, with special readings and remarks from Carol Burnett, in celebration of art and literature in unique American musical forms. The event will stream live at whitehouse.gov/live starting at 7:25 PM ET tonight. A Celebration of American Creativity: In Performance at the White House will premiere on PBS on Friday, January 8, 2016.

As previously noted, special one-night-only screenings of the documentary Paradise Is There, A Memoir by Natalie Merchant, The New Tigerlily Recordings have been announced for the fall. The film will be released by Nonesuch Records on November 6, 2015 on DVD as a companion piece to Natalie Merchant's upcoming album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. Merchant will perform in a handful of international cities in the spring with her An Evening with Natalie Merchant: The 2016 Paradise Is There tour; tickets go on sale Friday. She has released the album track "Carnival," which you can hear here; pre-order the album to download it now.

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman kicks off a tour of North America at Dartmouth's Hopkins Center for the Arts tonight, followed by stops this month in Toronto, Chicago, Madison, Carmel, Columbus, Saratoga Springs, Northampton, and Boston. In December, the band heads West for shows in Boulder, Phoenix, Albuquerque, San Diego, and Santa Cruz, closing out the 2015 touring with a four-night residency at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, December 10–13. The tour features music from The Bad Plus Joshua Redman's recently released self-titled debut album, which the New York Times calls "a knockout," and NPR describes as "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting."

Today marks the release of the new, self-titled record from St Germain (aka Ludovic Navarre), his first in 15 years, and it's "well worth the wait," says the Independent. The album marries percussive grooves, which have always been central to his sound, with a new element: traditional Malian music. "St Germain is a remarkable album of rewarding and organic music," exclaims All About Jazz in a five-star review. "It is really a rare occurrence that an electronic music is crafted with so much style and substance as this record." There are moments "that lift the music into the higher spirit realms," says NPR. Mixmag says it "never strays from the sublime." It "deftly balances tradition and modernity and begs repeated listening," says Jazzwise. "Navarre continues to revolutionise electronic music."

Nonesuch Records releases Junun—an album from composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, and the Rajasthan Express, a group of Indian musicians—on November 20, 2015. Recorded in a makeshift studio inside the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India, the album was made with Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich. It features Ben Tzur's compositions, which combine ecstatic, devotional Sufi qawwal musical traditions and his native Hebrew. Pre-orders are available now with an instant download of the album track "Roked." Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson documented the recording sessions; his film, also entitled Junun, debuted at the NY Film Festival and will stream exclusively on MUBI for the next 30 days.

Rhiannon Giddens returns to Austin City Limits … Jeremy Denk performs at The Kennedy Center … Emmylou Harris leads pet shelter benefit … Kronos Quartet performs at Stanford … Lianne La Havas continues in Canada … Audra McDonald sings in Massachusetts … Brad Mehldau heads to France … Pat Metheny plays Uppsala Guitar Fest … Randy Newman kicks off Europe tour … Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club takes "Adios" tour to California … Rokia Traoré performs Desdemona in LA … and more …

Randy Newman kicks off a month-long tour of Europe and the UK with two performances in the Netherlands, in Eindhoven and Nijmegen, followed by shows in Belgium in Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels, and a return to the Netherlands for shows at The Hague and in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Groningen. From there, Newman makes his way to the UK and Ireland, performing in London, Dublin, Glasgow, and Gateshead, and returns to the Continent to close out the tour in Germany and Austria.

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rokia Traoré's sixth album will be released on Nonesuch Records in early 2016. Further details about the record and its release will be announced shortly, as will upcoming tour dates. Desdemona, her theatrical collaboration with Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars, receives its Los Angeles premiere at UCLA's Freud Playhouse this weekend and it will be performed in Australia as part of the Melbourne and Sydney festivals later this month.

Select North American cities will host one-night-only screenings of the documentary Paradise Is There, A Memoir by Natalie Merchant, The New Tigerlily Recordings starting October 26. The film, which had its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival last week, will be released by Nonesuch on DVD with Natalie Merchant’s upcoming album, Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings, on November 6.

Rhiannon Giddens has unveiled the official music video for "Black Is the Color," off her debut solo album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. The video, directed by Peter Zavadil, premiered as an NPR Music First Watch. "We all had such a great time filming this video," says Giddens, "and were so honored to set our story—an old love story rediscovered—on the campus of Fisk University, a Nashville HBCU that dates back to 1866. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were among the first African-American performance groups to tour America and Europe, and they single-handedly kept their school from closing its doors with the money they raised with their singing." Watch it here.

Lianne La Havas was the musical guest on CBS This Morning: Saturday this past weekend. She performed three songs from her recently released album Blood: "Green and Gold," "Unstoppable," and "What You Don't Do." CBS This Morning host Anthony Mason called her "remarkable." You can see why in the performances here. La Havas is touring North America through the end of October.

Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Kronos Quartet, Conor Oberst, Punch Brothers play free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco … Laurie Anderson premieres new work at Park Avenue Armory … Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club passes through Pacific Northwest … Olivia Chaney concludes week-long US tour with Decemberists … Rhiannon Giddens plays Austin City Limits … Lianne La Havas takes tour to Toronto, Detroit, Chicago … Brad Mehldau visits Vienna … Audra McDonald performs in Disneyland … Randy Newman shows LA some love … and more …