John Adams conducts the European premiere of his opera Antony & Cleopatra in Barcelona starring Julia Bullock and Gerald Finley. Cécile McLorin Salvant takes her antipodean tour to Melbourne. Michelle Branch is in New Orleans. Mary Halvorson is in Luxembourg and Geneva. Ben LaMar Gay is at Public Records in Brooklyn. The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt pays tribute to Sinéad O’Connor at City Winery in NYC. Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered is performed in Dallas. Chris Thile and The Knights perform his new piece in Worcester and Ithaca. Vagabon is in Philadelphia, Connecticut, and DC.

Natalie Merchant has released the video for "Sister Tilly," from her new album, Keep Your Courage. The track is dedicated to Joan Didion and pays homage to the generation of women who influenced Merchant in the 1960s and ’70s when she was growing up. You can watch the video, directed by Matthew Shattuck and featuring archival footage from the era, here. Merchant begins a European tour next week. She hosts a new workshop at Fondazione Prada’s Accademia dei bambini in Milan in January and resumes her US West Coast tour in May.

Kronos Quartet’s award-winning 1990 album Black Angels will be released on vinyl on February 16, 2024, to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration of the quartet’s 50th anniversary. First released in 1990, the album features George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet in 1973, and works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich. The fourth side of the vinyl is an etching of an illustration created especially for this purpose by Matt Mahurin, whose work is featured on the original album cover. The Evening Standard included Black Angels among its “100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.”

Rhiannon Giddens recently gave an intimate performance at Racket in New York City for WFUV’s FUV Live. She spoke with host Alisa Ali about her new album, You’re the One, and more, and was joined by her band to perform several songs from it. You can now watch the performance of the album tracks “Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad,” “You Louisiana Man,” and “Yet to Be” below and listen to the complete session at wfuv.org.

Vagabon kicks off a North American tour in Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto. Ambrose Akinmusire and his Owl Song Trio—Bill Frisell, Herlin Riley—are in Carmel, IN. Sam Amidon is in Stroud, England. Michelle Branch is in Las Vegas. Richard Goode performs in Perth, Scotland. Mary Halvorson is in North Macedonia and in Germany, where Tigran Hamasyan tours as well. Hurray for the Riff Raff performs in Tulsa for the Bob Dylan Center. Gabriel Kahane and Attacca Quartet are at UCLA. Kronos Quartet performs at the Barbican in London. Mandy Patinkin is in New Brunswick, NJ. Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered is performed in Oslo. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway tour Colorado. Yasmin Williams is in Hot Springs, VA.

Rhiannon Giddens was on The Daily Show to talk with guest host Michael Kosta about her career, winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and her song "Another Wasted Life," from her new album, You're the One, which she also performed on the show. The song aims to raise awareness for the stories and voices of those who have experienced the injustices of the criminal legal system. She partnered with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project on a fundraising initiative and a music video for the song featuring 22 wrongfully convicted people, clients of the organization, who collectively spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

Rhiannon Giddens was on WNYC’s All of It with Alison Stewart to talk about and share songs from her new album, You’re the One. You can hear their conversation here. This Saturday, Giddens—who won this year's Pulitzer Prize in Music for her opera Omar with Michael Abels and hosts the Aria Code podcast from WNYC partner station WQXR and The Metropolitan Opera—will host The Met Opera’s Live in HD broadcast of Jake Heggie's opera Dead Man Walking, based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir.

Natalie Merchant is the guest on the latest episode of Songcraft, the podcast “about the creators of lyrics and music that stand the test of time.” She joins hosts Scott B. Bomar and Paul Duncan for an extensive conversation about her new album, Keep Your Courage, and music from throughout her career. You can hear their conversation here.

Ambrose Akinmusire and his Owl Song trio—guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Herlin Riley—share music from the upcoming album in LA. Darcy James Argue's Secret Society are in Baltimore. Michelle Branch tours California, as does Carminho. Jeremy Denk joins Rhode Island Philharmonic in Providence. Richard Goode joins BBC Philharmonic in Manchester. Tigran Hamasyan is in Tokyo. Kronos Quartet performs in Poland. Makaya McCraven is in Detroit and Toronto. Brad Mehldau plays with Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. Mandy Patinkin performs in Illinois. Cécile McLorin Salvant is in Texas. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway tour Washington State.

"This is my reaction to being assaulted by information," composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire says of his Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, due December 15, featuring a trio with two musicians he has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. "This record is me wanting to create a safe space. Part of the challenge was: Can I create something that's oriented around open space, the way some of the records I love the most do?" You can hear "Owl Song 1" here now. The New York Times says: "Akinmusire has been making some of the most intimate, spellbinding music of his career." Pitchfork has called his work "music that seeks peace not just despite a world of unrest, but within it."

Yussef Dayes performs “Tioga Pass,” from his debut solo album, Black Classical Music, in a new video, filmed in Malibu by German Vizcarra, with Dayes on drums, Rocco Palladino on bass, Venna on saxophone, Elijah Fox on piano, and Alexander Bourt on congas and percussion. You can watch it here. Dayes and his band play a sold-out show at London's Royal Albert Hall tomorrow, before heading out on a tour of the US next month, beginning at Warsaw in Brooklyn.

"Sorry I Haven’t Called was worth the wait, and another cool stylistic leap," Talkhouse host Josh Modell says of the new album from Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko), who talks with Jaboukie on the show. “Sorry I Haven’t Called, which was partly produced by former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, takes things even a step further, with an eye toward something even bigger and bolder. And even though the songs were inspired by a dark time in Tamko’s life, they turned out incredibly buoyant and upbeat.” You can hear the episode here.