The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, the first collection of tunes culled from Frisell's extensive Nonesuch catalog, is out this week. You can listen to every track from the album streaming on the Nonesuch Radio channel First Listen now. "Two words will sum up anything the exemplary guitarist has turned his hand to: 'very good,'" says the BBC. "But when it comes to his explorations in Americana as on this collection, it's very very good. If you don't already own most of these tracks, beware. Because when you do hear them you'll have to go out and buy all the parent albums that they're culled from."

Amadou & Mariam have been touring Europe all year and have made their way to the UK this week. The Scotsman's Scotland on Sunday spoke with "Mali's hottest exports" to discuss what "might just be the longest, most fruitful love affair in music," and how that relationship has contributed to their making "some of the most joyous, melodious funk and bluesy pop you're likely to encounter anywhere in the world." This Malian couple, says the paper, has "done for Mali what Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuba in the Nineties."

Dan Auerbach's newly released solo record, Keep It Hid, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart, a list of the week's best-performing albums from new artists. The Independent gives it four stars, citing the album's "broad sweep of blues styles" and Dan's vocals, channeling "the haunted quality of an authentic soul singer." The Cleveland Plain Dealer gives an A- to the new record, which sees Dan "cutting loose with a marvelous solo debut ... Crank it up."

Rokia Traoré is the subject of a feature article in the Financial Times that examines the life and career of "Mali’s most ambitious, experimental singer," in particular her place in a culture in which musical roles are often strictly defined by tradition and deep-rooted tastes. The article closes at a soundcheck in a London club in which Rokia and her band are getting ready to play, and even with the day's distractions, "when Traoré sings quietly, more to herself than to anyone else, the room is hers and hers alone."

Kronos Quartet provides an oasis of music from Central Asia and the Middle East at Stanford ... Graz Opera Ballet premieres dance set to works by Adams, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky ... Afro-Cuban All Stars tour the West Coast ... Gipsy Kings conclude their winter tour ... Philip Glass plays to Leonard Cohen's words and images in Austin ... Richard Goode performs Mozart at the Barbican ... Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin close out their quartet tour ... Stephen Sondheim chats with Frank Rich in Philadelphia ... and more ...

Bill Frisell has crafted a Nonesuch catalog of more than 20 albums that DownBeat included among "the best recorded output" of the last decade. Now comes the first anthology of songs assembled from that rich catalog in The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, out this Tuesday. The Independent gives a perfect five stars to this album of "beautiful, ringing musicality: 15 pieces of fathomless depth played with the freshness and simplicity that only genius brings. Make your world anew and treat yourself." The Guardian gives the album four stars, calling it "a delectable collection." All About Jazz calls it "a thing of rare joy and beauty."

Elliott Carter's centennial celebration continues this Tuesday with the release of a four-disc retrospective of the composer's Nonesuch recordings. The Observer says that "with performances from the 1970s and 1980s by some of his best interpreters," this Carter collection is "covetable and historic." The Guardian gives the set four stars, saying this collection, with "a whole clutch of outstanding performances" that first expanded the composer's reach in the UK, "is a must for all Carter admirers."

Amadou & Mariam, whose latest album, Welcome to Mali, is slated for a US release on Nonesuch next month, have just finalized their North American summer tour. The Malian couple will headline six shows in the US and Canada starting with a June 2 show at Chicago's Park West and stopping in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and New York, with a final show at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 10. They've also been tapped to join Coldplay for two weeks of the British band's own US tour. The Washington Post's rock critic writes of the forthcoming album: "Best thing I've heard this year."

John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic is set to receive its UK premiere next Wednesday, February 25, in the English National Opera's production at the London Coliseum. New Statesman spoke with the composer about the piece, with its "shatteringly powerful" music, and about his place as "the leading American composer of his generation, still in full creative flow, prolific and inventive." The article examines Adams's operas, from his first, Nixon in China, which "transformed the world of opera," to his latest, the "shimmeringly beautiful" A Flowering Tree.

Dan Auerbach appeared on today's episode of NPR's newsmagazine Day to Day to discuss his new album, Keep It Hid, including the process of setting his father's lyrics to music, and the development of his singing voice. "The only thing I've ever tried to do is be myself," says Dan. "Never put on a voice, sing naturally. And that always seems to work best for me."

Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble gave a marathon performance of the composer's seminal piece Music in Twelve Parts at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall Monday night. It was the West Coast premiere of the complete work, which had received its world premiere 35 years ago in New York. "I loved it," exclaims San Jose Mercury News critic Richard Scheinin. The piece, "with its youthful energy and imagination, is such a beguiling paradox. At first, it seems so narrow in sound, limited by its minimalist methods. But then, unfolding like time itself, it comes to contain so much. It opens up, grows vast."

John Adams's 1985 piece The Chairman Dances is this week's selection for The NPR Classical 50, a series naming 50 essential recordings for everyone from first-time listeners to fanatics. "The idea here is that a foxtrot is being danced, but there's more than just the dance-like quality of the music that we hear," says critic Ted Libbey. "I find it very rich that Adams can pull all of these elements all together, and that you can hear this wonderful, exuberant and lush melody come out of this texture. It shows his ability to bring disparate pieces together in a way that does say something."