To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, Nonesuch released Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on which Billy Bragg and Wilco put music to lyrics by Guthrie for which he had not written music or made recordings. Bragg has launched a tour in celebration of the centenary and has just added four specially curated acoustic shows in the UK and Ireland this September, with guests Joe Henry, KT Tunstall, and more. Here, in his own words, Bragg shares his thoughts on Guthrie, the Mermaid Avenue project, and the concerts.

Amadou & Mariam performed songs from their new album, Folila—which Relix calls "a funky, intricate and richly textured record"—in A Room for London, a one-bedroom riverboat lodged atop the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, last Wednesday as part of the Sounds from a Room series. You can now watch the nearly 40-minute set here, via the Guardian.

The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, formerly UCLA Live, has announced its inaugural season, marking the curatorial debut of its Executive and Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds, and featured among the artists performing as part of its 2012–13 season of events at Royce Hall are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Emmylou Harris, Laurie Anderson, Allen Toussaint, the Brad Mehldau Trio, and Joshua Redman. The new season also includes events celebrating Kate McGarrigle and Ali Farka Touré.

Sara Watkins performed "When It Pleases You," off her new album, Sun Midnight Sun, on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS last Thursday. In case you missed it or want to see it again, you can watch the performance here. Watkins and fellow Nonesuch artist Shawn Colvin joined Garrison Keillor and the cast of A Prairie Home Companion for the show this weekend, now available online. Watkins performs "You and Me" and "Take Up Your Spade" off the new album; Colvin plays "Change Is on the Way," off her new album, All Fall Down.

MTV today announced that The Black Keys will perform their hit single “Gold on the Ceiling,” off their album El Camino, at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards. Hosted by comedian/actor Russell Brand, the awards will air live this Sunday, June 3, at 9 PM ET/PT. The Black Keys head back on the road in July for more North American arena shows and to headline a number of summer festivals in North America and Europe.

On this long Memorial Day weekend in the US, Shawn Colvin and Sara Watkins join Garrison Keillor and the cast of A Prairie Home Companion for live shows ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to Portugal ... Billy Bragg brings Mermaid Avenue to Belgium and Germany ... Carolina Chocolate Drops tour with Dave Matthews Band ... James Farm has three nights in Oakland ... Kronos Quartet joins Philip Glass for Dracula in the UK ... Richard Goode performs in Spain ... k.d. lang is in New Orleans and Orlando ... Brad Mehldau Trio plays Cancun ... and more ...

Sara Watkins, whose new album, Sun Midnight Sun, was released earlier this month in North America and will be released worldwide on Monday, celebrates the occasion with a performance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Tune in to CBS tonight at 12:35 AM ET to see Watkins perform "When It Pleases You" off the new album. Also on tonight's show: Alfred Molina. Watkins performs on A Prairie Home Companion this weekend.

Lianne La Havas, whose debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, will be released in the US on August 7 via Nonesuch Records, has unveiled the video for the album's title track. "Lianne La Havas has pipes, and she’s taken her soulful show on the road," says MTV Iggy. "That’s the takeaway from her latest music video, for 'Is Your Love Big Enough,' which Lianne shot with her bandmates while they were on tour in Europe. Highlights: unbelievable footwear, reckless bowling moves, and beatific audiences. All to the sound of Lianne asking 'Is your love/Big enough for what’s to come?' If it’s more of this, then yes, totally." Watch it here.

Jeremy Denk is the guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. Denk discusses his new album, Ligeti/Beethoven, which pairs Ligeti’s Piano Études, Books One and Two, and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111. "Ligeti took the piano to places it had never been before, and makes demands of the pianist and the mind that had never been made before," Denk tells Gross. "But all of it is derived from ideas from earlier piano etudes and his love of the great piano repertoire." He goes on to say: "The last Beethoven sonata seems to me [to be] one of the most profound musical journeys to infinity ever made ... The whole piece seems to want to bring us from a present moment into this timeless space where everything is continuous and endless."

Björk has teamed up with the New York Public Library and the Children's Museum of Manhattan to launch an educational programming series based on her latest album, Biophilia, and its accompanying iPad apps. The program seeks to teach kids about the connections between technology, art, and natural phenomena. The NYPL program, aimed at middle school children, begins in July and will run through the fall. The Children's Museum of Manhattan will offer daily drop-in programming to school groups, summer camps, and families with children aged 3-11, beginning July 6 and running through December 30.

The Sara Watkins–penned tune "You and Me," off her new album, Sun Midnight Sun, has been chosen as Today's Top Tune by KCRW in LA. The song, which Watkins recently performed on The Tonight Show, features harmony vocals by Jackson Browne, with whom she tours later this summer. Watkins, one of the most frequent guest artists on A Prairie Home Companion, will join host Garrison Keillor and fellow guest Shawn Colvin for a live broadcast of the show from Wolf Trap's Filene Center outside DC this weekend.