Nickel Creek's new album, A Dotted Line, is due out next Tuesday, April 1. But you don’t need to wait till then to hear it: the new album is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. "There's no doubt that the virtuosity and vision of each Nickel Creek member has intensified," writes NPR's Ann Powers. The new album is "more adventurous than Nickel Creek's earlier work, and more expressive of each player's strengths ... It's tight, it's masterful; it's totally grown-up. But it's also a blast."

Kronos Quartet is the subject of a feature in the Sunday New York Times looking back in the group's 40th anniversary season and ahead as it continues to innovate and inspire. Kronos performs a program in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium this Friday featuring collaborations with many of its close colleagues and longtime artistic partners. Q2 Music launches KRONOS AT 40, a 24-hour, Kronos marathon stream on Monday. Nonesuch releases Kronos Quartet's A Thousand Thoughts and the five-disc Kronos Explorer Series box set April 8, and the soundtrack to the new film Noah, on which Kronos performs, Tuesday.

Punch Brothers play Southern festival sets at Savannah Music Festival and Suwannee Springfest ... Timo Andres makes Twin Cities debut with Work Songs ... Shawn Colvin, Steve Earle share the stage in Indianapolis and Atlanta ... Emmylou Harris plays benefit in Montana ... Kronos Quartet is in residence at Duke University ... Natalie Merchant joins New Jersey Symphony Chamber Orchestra ... Pat Metheny Unity Group tours mid-Altantic ... Joshua Redman Quartet closes out European tour ... Sara Watkins takes Watkins Family Hour to Santa Barbara ... and more ...

Devendra Banhart and Rokia Traoré kick off Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records, the Barbican's month-long celebration of Nonesuch Records' 50th anniversary, sharing an "unplugged" evening featuring recent and past material, at the Barbican Hall in London on Friday, May 2, 2014. Tickets are on sale now. Explorations: The Sound of Nonesuch Records includes a marathon weekend of concerts, May 17-18, and additional satellite events throughout the month of May.

There are just two weeks to go before the release of Nickel Creek's new album, A Dotted Line, on April 1. The band previously unveiled two tracks from the album, "Destination" and "Love of Mine," and has now revealed a third, "21st of May," which you can hear here. Sean Watkins wrote the song on May 20, 2011, the day before the supposed rapture as predicted and advertised by Bay Area pastor Harold Camping, whose point of view he sings it from. Download all three tracks now with album pre-orders in the Nonesuch Store, at nickelcreek.com, and on iTunes. All Nonesuch and Nickel Creek pre-orders are also automatically entered to win weekly prize drawings.

Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, the debut album from the electric duo of Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana, released late last month on CD and digitally, is now available on vinyl. Mehldau and Guiliana have been performing for several years, with Mehldau playing Fender Rhodes and synthesizers and Guiliana on drums and effects, as they are on the record. Mehliana comprises 12 original tunes—six written by the duo and six written by Mehldau—and was engineered and mixed by Greg Koller (Jon Brion, Kanye West). The vinyl edition includes two 140-gram LPs pressed at Pallas MFG in Diepholz, Germany, and a CD of the album. 

Pianist Jeremy Denk has been named the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize recipient for his outstanding contributions to the music world and his artistic excellence. As the recipient of this honor, Denk receives a monetary award of $75,000. On a marble plaque in Avery Fisher Hall, his name will join the 21 previous Prize recipients, including Richard Goode and Kronos Quartet. Denk has also been named the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's newest Artistic Partner, marking Denk's first appointed position with an orchestra; his tenure will begin in the 2014–15 season.

Nonesuch Records releases Caetano Veloso’s album Abraçaço in North America next Tuesday, March 25. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming in full via WNYC's Soundcheck. "Abraçaço, (which means “big hug”) is not some subdued, late-career exercise in nostalgia or retrospection," asserts Soundcheck host John Schaefer. KCRW, also streaming the album, calls it Veloso "at his best." You can download two album tracks, "A Bossa Nova É Foda" and "Um Abraçaço," when you pre-order the album in the Nonesuch Store.

Timo Andres is the subject of the latest episode of Q2 Music's Q2 Spaces, which looks inside the homes and studios of composers and performers in the new-music world. Andres welcomes viewers into his Brooklyn home for a conversation about Beethoven, Ingram Marhsall, Edward Gorey, and much more. Watch it here. He gives the world premiere of a new piece, Work Songs, in New York City this Wednesday as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival. Andres wrote the piece especially for fellow composers and multi-instrumentalists Gabriel Kahane, Ted Hearne, Becca Stevens, and Nathan Koci, who will perform it in the concert. The concert will be hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer and webcast live on Q2 Music.

Kronos Quartet's 40th anniversary celebrations continue with two nights at Royce Hall in LA, joined by Laurie Anderson for the area premiere of Landfall ... John Adams’s joins Gustavo Dudamel for NYC TimesTalk; his The Death of Klinghoffer receives Southern California premiere ... Olivia Chaney celebrates fRoots' 35th anniversary in London ... Richard Goode performs in Miami ... Brad Mehldau Trio tours France and Spain ... Pat Metheny Unity Group rounds out Midwest tour ... Randy Newman concludes Colorado tour ... Joshua Redman Quartet is in France ... and more ...

Nonesuch releases composer Clint Mansell’s score to visionary filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah on March 25, 2014. Directed by Aronofsky, the film will be released on March 28. Russell Crowe stars as Noah in the film inspired by the epic story of courage, sacrifice, and hope. The cast stars Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The score is performed by Kronos Quartet, joined by Patti Smith for her song "Mercy Is." An orchestra and choir are led by Matt Dunkley, who was also the principal orchestrator and arranger. The album was produced by Clint Mansell and Geoff Foster and is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

Natalie Merchant will be joined by The School of Life Founder and philosopher Alain de Botton for an evening of conversation and music at Shoreditch Town Hall in London on Thursday, May 15. The two will discuss the inspirations for the songs on her new, self-titled album, due May 5 on Nonesuch Records, and Merchant will offer a selection of live musical illustrations. Merchant will perform two sold-out concerts in London in May and join fellow Nonesuch artists for a sold-out concert there later that month.