The release of Natalie Merchant’s Leave Your Sleep is just over two weeks away. The Sunday Times (UK) calls it "the biggest, most musically ambitious" project of her career. Merchant will start release day, April 13, with a performance on Good Morning America. The following week, on April 21, she'll play The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In between those appearances and in the weeks that follow, Merchant will give several intimate performances, including newly added dates in New York, Los Angeles, Boulder, Boston, and DC.

Composer Peter Lieberson wrote Neruda Songs, a 2005 Grammy-winning piece based on Pablo Neruda’s poems, for his wife, the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson before the mezzo-soprano’s untimely passing. The Washington Post called it “one of the most extraordinarily affecting artistic gifts ever created by one lover to another.” His second cycle based on Neruda premiered in Boston this week.

The new Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music is due out next Tuesday, April 6. That same day, Sondheim and the cast, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury, and Alexander Hanson, will sign copies of the album at the Walter Kerr Theatre, from 2 to 3:30 PM.

The Low Anthem tours West Coast ... John Adams leads all-Adams program in Paris ... Carolina Chocolate Drops do Black Banjo Gathering ... Christina Courtin opens in NYC ... Bill Frisell plays Baghdad/Seattle Suite in New Mexico ... Kronos takes A Chinese Home to Notre Dame ... The Magnetic Fields bring Realism to Berlin ... Brad Mehldau plays Mexico City ... Portland, Maine, hosts Chris Thile and Punch Brothers sets ... Allen Toussaint plays Bern Jazz Fest ... Wilco continues sold-out tour ... and more ...

Brad Mehldau's Highway Rider has been named a CD Pick of the Week by WNYC's Soundcheck, which finds its title "as cinematographic as the music: Highway Rider." The Boston Herald gives it an A-, saying, "Mehldau’s aim seems to be nothing less than the integration of chamber music and jazz, a goal he pretty much achieves." The Ottawa Citizen gives it four stars, calling it "riveting ... There's probably not another jazz recording that sounds quite like it."

Yesterday brought word of The Black Keys' May 25 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Today we're happy to report that the band will follow up that appearance with a performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the following night, Wednesday, May 26. It's all to celebrate the release of their forthcoming Nonesuch album, Brothers, on May 18.

Tune in to Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight to catch Emmylou Harris and Sarah McLachlan perform McLachlan's hit song "Angel." The two are among the many female singer-songwriters and performers slated to tour the US this summer for Lilith Fair 2010. Ticket pre-sales for eight of the tour's 36 cities are available now for subscribers to the Lilith Fair newsletter. Harris's dates have yet to be announced.

Henryk Górecki and Arvo Pärt are the featured composers in the latest episode of BBC Four's Sacred Music, airing Friday. Górecki's Nonesuch catalog includes the famed 1991 recording of his Third Symphony by Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta, which became the highest-selling album by a contemporary composer, and his three string quartets, each performed by Kronos Quartet. Kronos has recorded Pärt's work for Nonesuch as well, as have Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica.

Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant's first new album in seven years and her Nonesuch debut, is out now. For the album, Merchant adapts the works of poets into a musically kaleidoscopic, two-disc set of new songs. It was featured on the BBC World Service program The Strand. Now, Merchant offers further insight into the project in a new 10-minute documentary, The Making of "Leave Your Sleep," available at nonesuch.com/media, where you'll also find a video retrospective celebrating Merchant's career.

Mark your calendars: The Black Keys are slated to perform on the Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday, May 25, one week after the release of their forthcoming Nonesuch album, Brothers. You can get an early listen to the album's lone Danger Mouse-produced track, "Tighten Up," on the band's MySpace page, which has just been given a timely face-lift to match the vibe of the album art.

The Magnetic Fields' Realism tour made its way through England and continues on the Continent for the next week. BBC Manchester spoke with Stephin Merritt, "a brilliant songwriter," for "one of the most honest interviews from a songwriter about how hard it is to work on the art of it." The band's set at London's Barbican Centre elicited "well earned applause," says the Evening Standard's four-star review. The Arts Desk called it "a delightful show ... what a great band; and what a lovely, sad, funny evening."

The Low Anthem's West Coast tour will begin one day later than planned, at LA's Bootleg Theatre tomorrow. Now comes word that The Low Anthem will return to the Newport Folk Festival for the third year in a row, playing the main stage on July 31. Label mates Punch Brothers perform the next day. Discounted tickets are available through Friday. Chris Thile performs at the Savannah Music Festival tonight and will join up with Punch Brothers in Portland, Maine, this weekend.