Laurie Anderson’s Amelia is due August 30. Her first new album since 2018’s Grammy-winning Landfall, it comprises twenty-two tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson, who Pitchfork says, “sees the future, but she starts by paying attention,” wrote the music and lyrics. She is joined on the album by the Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wollesen. The track “Road to Mandalay” is available now; a limited-edition print autographed by Anderson is available with Nonesuch Store pre-orders.

Congratulations to the company of Illinoise: A New Musical on its performance on the Tony Awards last night and to the show's director, choreographer, and co-author Justin Peck, who won the Tony for Outstanding Choreography. The cast performed "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!," from the show, which features music and lyrics by Sufjan Stevens based on his album Illinois, with new arrangements by Timo Andres. You can watch it here. The original cast recording, now available to download and stream, is out on CD this Friday and is on vinyl August 30.

Rectangles and Circumstance, an album of ten songs co-written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, is out now. Shaw and Sō's Eric Cha-Beach and Adam Sliwinski "sourced a group of nineteenth-century poems that shaped its expressive mode [and] ended up using verses by Christina Rosetti, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and William Blake," says Sliwinski. "The lyrics on this album by members of the band contain wordplay that explores the same profound feelings explored by Blake and Dickinson.” Shaw and Sō co-produced the album with Grammy-winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift). Also out today is a video for the album track "Sing On," which you can watch here.

The Tony Awards broadcast live on CBS—with multiple nominations for Illinoise, Days of Wine and Roses, and Here Lies Love—from Lincoln Center on Sunday, where Kronos Quartet live-scores Sam Green’s A Thousand Thoughts Saturday. Yasmin Williams performs at NY and VA guitar fests. Ringdown is in Brooklyn. Natalie Merchant leads a sing-along at Library of Congress in DC. Jeremy Denk gives a master class in Santa Barbara. Chris Thile joins Virginia Symphony Orchestra in Virginia Beach and Newport News. Davóne Tines is in a new opera at MOCA in LA. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway are San Luis Obispo then join Old Crow Medicine Show in Oakland and Oregon.

Ringdown, the cinematic pop duo of Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan, stopped by WNYC in New York City to perform on New Sounds' Soundcheck and talk with host John Schaefer. They perform three songs: "Reckoning," "Thirst," and "Two-Step," their Nonesuch debut single released in March. You can watch all three and hear the episode here. Ringdown recently joined Sō Percussion on New Sounds to perform songs from Rectangles and Circumstance, the new album from Shaw and Sō, out tomorrow.

"When Sō Percussion started working with Caroline, we noticed that her first creative step, before writing any music, was to suggest sounds. Then, she would step back and listen," Sō's Adam Sliwinski writes in his liner note to the new Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion album, Rectangles and Circumstance, out this Friday on Nonesuch. You can read his note here.

Congratulations to 2024 Drama Desk Awards winners Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara, both of whom won for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical for Days of Wine and Roses, and Justin Peck, who won for Outstanding Choreography for Illinoise. They are all up for Tony Awards this coming Sunday. Additionally, Illinoise is nominated for Best Musical, Best Orchestrations, and Best Lighting Design; Days of Wine and Roses is also up for Best Original Score; and Here Lies Love is up for Best Original Score, Best Sound Design, Best Scenic Design, and Best Choreography.

The Staves have released a new video podcast episode in which band mates and sisters Jessica and Camilla Stavely-Taylor chat about all things All Now, their new album. "I think wanting things to be really good can make you very afraid to try, because you're worried about failing, about falling short of that, which is such a trap—it keeps you kind of frozen," Camilla says. "Ultimately it doesn't matter, you have to just do things, keep those muscles moving, making things and being imperfect and imperfections are what life is about. That's human." You can watch their conversation here.

Adam Guettel's 1996 musical Floyd Collins—for which Nonesuch released the original cast recording in 1997—will be given its Broadway premiere at Lincoln Center Theater next spring; previews begin March 27, opening night April 21. Guettel wrote the music and lyrics for Floyd Collins, with additional lyrics by Tina Landau, who wrote the book and will direct the LCT production. Cast and ticket on-sale details are still to be announced. Adam Guettel's new musical, Days of Wine and Roses, is up for three Tony Awards this Sunday.

"Right from the start, the very first notes sound almost like a pickaxe going against rock and then against that the singing has a certain quality that I think has that same simplicity of affect," composer John Adams says of his 2017 opera, Girls of the Golden West, in a new Boosey & Hawkes video marking the work's recently released first recording. "All of that comes together in this opera in a way that I think only opera can actually address, because it addresses you on an intellectual level, but it also fundamentally touches you on an emotional level." You can see what else he had to say here.

The cast of the current four-time Tony Award-nominated Broadway show Illinoise: A New Musical was on CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform "Jacksonville" from the show and the just-released original cast recording. The choreography and tap dance choreography are by the show's director, choreographer, and co-author Justin Peck, with tap dance improvisations by Byron Tittle; music and lyrics are by Sufjan Stevens based on his album Illinois. You can watch the performance here.

Caroline Shaw stopped by for the Nonesuch Selects video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. She chose recordings by Rhiannon Giddens, Dawn Upshaw, Gabriel Kahane, Mountain Man, Steve Reich, and Chris Thile.