As English singer/songwriter/guitarist Lianne La Havas prepares her new album, Blood, for summer release, she has premiered a new song, "Unstoppable." Hear it here and download with pre-orders of the album. Blood was inspired by her Jamaican and Greek family heritage. Lyrically, the songs she wrote are almost all related to "the feeling of who you are and where you come from," she says. Musically, she took inspiration from Jamaica's love of grooves, rhythms, and syncopation. Dancehall/reggae producer Stephen McGregor joined in the making of Blood, as did a rich collection of others.

The Staves' Justin Vernon–produced label debut, If I Was, released last month on CD and digitally, is now available on vinyl. The New York Times says the three sisters bring "angelic harmonies" to the "consistently daring" album. Stereogum calls If I Was "essential listening." The trio, currently touring Europe, has just announced a performance at Rough Trade in Brooklyn on May 11 and will perform at Vernon's Eaux Claires festival in July.

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, has announced its 2015–16 concert season, the organization's 110th, which will feature performances from artists and works by composers familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Kronos Quartet, Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, Youssou N'Dour, John Adams, Timo Andres, and Jacob Cooper.

Sam Amidon has released a new video for the song "Blue Mountains," off his latest album, Lily-O. The song is an Appalachian ballad that tells an enigmatic tale of a young woman who falls in love with a married man. The video, which was created by filmmaker and fine-art/fashion photographer Andrea Sisson, premiered earlier today via Paste, which calls Lily-O "excellent." The video was shot in Ojai, CA, and features Amidon and model/actress Alex Noiret. Watch it here. Amidon is currently touring with Sharon Van Etten in Europe and the UK then headlines his own European shows.

John Adams conducts his Scheherezade.2 with Cincinnati Symphony ... Sam Amidon tours Europe ... Laurie Anderson curates Live Ideas Festival in NYC ... Timo Andres plays in NYC ... Jacob Cooper performs his Silver Threads in Portland ... Jeremy Denk tours with Florida Symphony ... Fatoumata Diawara tours US ... Rhiannon Giddens tours Northeast ... Richard Goode plays Beethoven and more in Baltimore ... Kronos Quartet is in France ... Audra McDonald tours New Jersey ... Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman trios tour Europe, separately ... and more ...

Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record stores, takes place this Saturday, April 18, and included among the special limited-edition vinyl releases are the Robert Plant 10" More Roar, a double LP of Steve Reich's Grammy-winning Music for 18 Musicians, and a Buena Vista Social Club 7" single.

Audra McDonald and Björk have been named to the TIME 100 List, the magazine's annual list of the world's Most Influential People, as was Richard Linklater, the director of the film Boyhood. They join a list of honorees that includes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis, and Kanye West, among others.

Rhiannon Giddens was the subject of a feature on PBS NewsHour, looking at her solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. "Her debut celebrates women who influenced her, some famous like Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline, others, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Libba Cotten, much less so," says NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown. "The album also showcases Giddens’ range through gospel, blues, country, and jazz." Watch the NewsHour piece here. Forbes, reviewing her recent NYC tour stop, exclaims: "Besides a thrilling voice, she comes at you with a barrage of sounds and sights and movements from an arsenal of talents that will positively floor you ... She’s a musician’s musician, and, moreover, a people’s musician, one of the best ever."

Olivia Chaney, whose debut album, The Longest River, is due out April 28, will perform a number of shows celebrating the release in the United Kingdom in May, in Manchester, Edinburgh, and London, before heading to North America for a three-week tour starting in Washington, DC, on June 4 and culminating in New York City on June 25. During a recent visit to the States, Chaney stopped by The Living Room in Brooklyn—a stop on her upcoming tour—to perform "Imperfections" for a new video, which you can watch here.

The Staves celebrated the release of their new album, If I Was, with a performance at Wilton's Music Hall in London last month. You can now watch four performances from the concert: three songs from the album—"Make It Holy," with album producer Justin Vernon, "Teeth White," and "Black & White"—as well as their take, with Vernon, on the Bruce Springsteen classic "I'm on Fire." Watch them here.

Sam Amidon, whose latest album, Lily-O, was released in September, kicks off a tour of Europe with a performance in Ghent, Belgium, tonight, followed by a two-week tour of the Benelux countries, Ireland, and the UK with Sharon Van Etten, and a ten-day solo tour culminating in a performance at Islington Assembly Hall in London on May 10. Amidon then heads to the US for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrating the music of Arthur Russell and several summer festivals, including Wilco's Solid Sound, Justin Vernon's Eaux Claires, and Pickathon.

Tyondai Braxton shares a new track, "Gracka," from his Nonesuch debut album HIVE1. "'Gracka' is a nickname for my wife Grace and it reminds me of her," says Braxton. "The piece emulates her always surprising, always beautiful spirit and down to earth nature." Hear the track here. Braxton also announces the Canadian premiere of HIVE at Montreal's MUTEK Festival on May 30, followed by a three-night HIVE residency at The Kitchen in NYC, June 4–6, and solo dates in Copenhagen, Ghent, and London.