Sam Amidon begins a tour of the West Coast of the US and Canada, joined by saxophonist Sam Gendel, at Western Front in Vancouver tonight, followed by shows in Seattle and Portland and three stops in California: Berkeley (as special guest of Bill Frisell), Soquel, and Los Angeles. Amidon will join Bruce Horsby and the Noisemakers as special guest on their tour of the Eastern US in June.

Yola marked today's release of her Dan Auerbach–produced debut album, Walk Through Fire, on Easy Eye Sound with a Facebook Live performance of four songs from the new album with Auerbach and friends at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville: "Love All Night (Work All Day)," "Ride Out in the Country," "Faraway Look," and the title track, "Walk Through Fire." You can watch the complete session here.

Yola's debut solo album, Walk Through Fire, produced by Dan Auerbach, is out now on Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound label. The album "showcases Yola's otherworldly vocals and compelling songwriting," says NPR. "It's the work of an artist sure to stun audiences for years to come." "[S]he arrives an instant, incandescent vocal star," exclaims the Sunday Times. "Rich with vibrato and echoing Dusty in Memphis, her singing elevates a sequence of immaculately upholstered songs to greatness ... Walk Through Fire introduces an artist who is unmistakably the real deal." "Can't. Stop. Listening," says the Sunday Telegraph. "A star in the making, for sure."

Rhiannon Giddens, who made her Boston Pops debut during the 2018 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, returns for a Pops residency titled Redefining American Music, May 22–25, 2019. For the first two evenings, she joins the Pops to perform music from her own albums, fusing influences from roots, jazz, blues, country, gospel, and Celtic music. The next two nights, Giddens curates a program that spotlights overlooked African American composers, joined by vocalist Darius de Haas and pianist Lara Downes.

Congratulations to John Adams, the winner of the 2019 Erasmus Prize from the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. The prize is awarded annually to a person or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to the field of humanities, social sciences, or the arts. It will be presented in November 2019 by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and includes €150,000 in prize money. Adams "receives the prize because he has created a new musical idiom by fusing elements from jazz, pop, and classical music," says the Foundation.

Brad Mehldau begins European tour with tenor Ian Bostridge in Germany … John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony is performed by Oregon Symphony … Jeremy Denk is in Florida … Rhiannon Giddens performs in Washington, DC … Gabriel Kahane brings Book of Travelers to Brooklyn … Joshua Redman brings Still Dreaming to Norway … Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from Detroit … Yola celebrates album release in Nashville …

Sam Amidon will join Bruce Hornsby as special guest on his tour of the Eastern US in June. The concerts begin at Charleston Music Hall in South Carolina and continue in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and New Hampshire. Amidon and saxophonist Sam Gendel tour the West Coast starting this Monday.

A Thousand Thoughts, a live documentary with the Kronos Quartet, written and directed by filmmakers Sam Green and Joe Bini—which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and has been performed around the world—will continue to tour the US in the coming weeks and months: in Urbana, Nashville, Austin, Detroit, and New York City. The multimedia performance piece blends live music and narration with archival footage and filmed interviews to tell Kronos's story. "It's as magical an amalgamation as you can imagine," exclaims the Los Angeles Times.

Pitchfork has published its list of The 50 Best Movie Scores of All Time, including four for which Nonesuch Records has released recordings: Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread and Philip Glass's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (featuring Kronos Quartet) and Koyaanisqatsi.

Rostam, whose solo debut album, Half-Light, was released on Nonesuch in September 2017, celebrated the album's anniversary with a show at the Fonda Theatre in LA last September. He has released a video from that night of a special extended version of the album's title track, performed with a string quartet. Each group member takes a solo turn that quotes from a famous melody, including the Gaelic tune " Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór," Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," the Shaker song "Simple Gifts," and Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights." You can watch it here.

This long weekend in the US, Joshua Redman, Brian Blade, Scott Colley, Ron Miles bring Still Dreaming to the Barbican in London ... Laurie Anderson takes part in Pitchfork's Midwinter in Chicago … Emmylou Harris performs on Cayamo … Steve Reich’s works are performed around the world, from Hong Kong to Sydney to London …

Yola's debut solo album, Walk Through Fire, out next Friday, February 22, on Easy Eye Sound, is streaming in full all week as an NPR First Listen. Yola's "sonic palette, which spans country, folk, classic soul and '70s-era Britpop; her emotive songwriting, which oscillates between vulnerability and chest-pounding empowerment; and her truly powerful voice," says NPR Music's Brittney McKenna, "abounds on Walk Through Fire, ... [which] showcases Yola's otherworldly vocals and compelling songwriting." McKenna concludes: "It's the work of an artist sure to stun audiences for years to come."