While sheltering at home with his family during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, pianist and composer Brad Mehldau wrote twelve new songs about what he was experiencing; he was able to record them safely in a studio, together with interpretations of three tunes that mean a great deal to him personally. The resulting album, Suite: April 2020, is available now as a limited-edition deluxe 180-gram vinyl LP. One thousand numbered and signed copies are available for $100 exclusively from the Nonesuch Store, Bandcamp, and Discogs; a minimum of $90 from each sale will be donated to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund (after distribution fees). Suite: April 2020 is also available digitally today, with CD and standard vinyl editions due September 18; a portion of their sales also will benefit JFA’s Fund. A video for the album track “remembering before all this,” with an introduction by Mehldau, is available here.

While we can't go out to take in great live music, here are some events taking place online to enjoy while staying home this weekend: Rhiannon Giddens' February concert with Francesco Turrisi and Jason Sypher at SFJAZZ gets its digital premiere tonight; she gives a live performance on Sunday for the Bang on a Can Marathon, which includes sets by Terry Riley, Nico Muhly, and more; also on Sunday, Gaby Moreno performs live on QChamberstream to benefit Color of Change; and Sam Amidon performs on The Momentary's Instagram Live.

The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), formed at the onset of the COVID-19 shutdown and now comprising nearly 2,000 members in all 50 states and Washington, DC, has released the results of a survey in which 90% of its members report that they will be forced to close forever if the shutdown lasts six months or longer without federal support. NIVA reports that the existing Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), even with recent modifications, will not save independent venues, as it leaves fixed costs, even when venues are not permitted to open, and has released a new set of policy requests.

Kronos Quartet has released a short film edited by Evan Neff scored to its performance of an excerpt of Peace Be Till, which composer Zachary Watkins wrote for the group in 2018. In the piece, Dr. Clarence B. Jones, the former personal counsel, speechwriter, and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., reads King's defense of nonviolent direct action in his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail, which Jones calls "the symphony of social justice." In 1963, Jones had smuggled King's words from the Birmingham, Alabama, jail cell in which he was being held for his participation in a peaceful demonstration.

Laurie Anderson's new radio show, Party in the Bardo: Conversations with Laurie Anderson, premiered on WESU Middletown 88.1FM today—her birthday—and can be heard online for two weeks via WESU. "We are in a national emergency, with no boundaries, an emergency that keeps shifting from day to day, as marches and protests demanding racial equality and justice for George Floyd happen all over the country and all over the world," she says. "The pandemic has kept many people isolated for weeks or months with no definite end in sight. And what's amazing is that what finally brings people flooding out into the streets is not anger or greed or fear. It is a tremendous surge of empathy. It is a passionate and shared and long overdue outrage, a huge and global cry for justice. And this is being met by the President of the United States not with gratitude for the sense of fairness in the American people. No, this movement of empathy and fairness and solidarity is being met with tanks and threats. It's almost as if the surge of goodness itself cannot be tolerated, because it cannot be understood."

We join others all over the world in outrage over the violent killing of George Floyd and in condemnation of prejudice and violence. We stand in solidarity with those who refuse to be silent in this moment of crisis. On Tuesday, June 2, Warner Music Group, including Nonesuch Records, is observing Black Out Tuesday, a day to process this tragedy and focus on accountability and change. As part of the ongoing fight for change, Warner Music Group is contributing to Black Lives Matter and others doing crucial work to combat racial injustice. Here are some ways to get involved. Sign the Justice for George Floyd petition. Donate to the official George Floyd Memorial Fund. Donate to organizations like Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, ACLU Racial Justice Program, and The Bail Project. Register to vote at HeadCount.org.

On the first day of the month, we kicked off a 30-Day Song Challenge (plus one, for the extra day in May), to help us keep track of the days while we stayed home, and it looked as if we would need the help to keep one day from blurring into the next. Now, as the month ends, the days proved memorable in ways we hadn't imagined at the start. For those who joined us along the way and offered your own selections, thank you. Hope you enjoyed. You can listen to all 31 songs in one playlist here.

The Magnetic Fields' new album, Quickies, which was released digitally earlier this month, is now available in a five 7" vinyl box set. You can take a quick look inside in the unboxing video here. The album is twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, performed by Merritt and band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo, along with longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman. "Miniature gems," says the Guardian. "Extraordinary." A single CD is available outside the US now and will be in the US June 19.

The cast of Dave Malloy's Octet reunited as their characters for a "Friends of Saul" Zoom meeting to perform "The Forest" from the musical in a new video from the Signature Theatre. You can watch the performance from Adam Bashian, Alex Gibson, JD Mollison, Justin Gregory Lopez, Kim Blanck, Kuhoo Verma, and Margo Seibert in the video, edited by Lindsey Augusta Mercer, here.

Nonesuch releases its fourth recording from pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan, The Call Within, on August 28, 2020. On the album, he performs ten original compositions, with Evan Marien on electric bass and Arthur Hnatek on drums. Produced by Hamasyan, The Call Within is a journey into his dreamlike inner world, taking inspiration from his interest in maps from different eras, poetry, Armenian folk stories, astrology, geometry, ancient Armenian design, rock carvings, and cinematography. Pre-order to download the album track “Levitation 21,” a video for which can be seen here; Nonesuch Store pre-orders also include an exclusive, limited-edition print.

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi performed an NPR Music Tiny Desk Home Concert from Dublin. The set includes four "old songs," as Giddens calls them—"'cause with these kinds of emotions, the old songs say it best." You can watch it here. "They're finding comfort in being together, making music together, thinking of their families in both Italy and the United States, and hoping to comfort us all with some down-home tunes," says NPR's Bob Boilen. "And with banjos, fiddles, a bodhrán, and that stunning voice, it sure worked for me!"

The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt performed a two-song set for The Andy Warhol Museum's Silver Studio Sessions series from home: "She Says Hello," from the band's new album, Quickies, and his take on The Walker Brothers tune "In My Room." You can watch it here.