David Byrne brings "breahtlessly brilliant" concert (Evening Standard) to the Continent ... Leila Josefowicz play's Adams Violin Concerto with Houston ... Laurie Anderson puts life in focus at Rubin Museum talk ... New World Symphony premieres Andriessen's Vermeer Pictures ... Assads, Salerno-Sonnenberg revisit Gypsy music ... Black Keys play Coachella's main stage ... Carolina Chocolate Drops do Southern festivals, Record Store Day in-store ... Toumani Diabaté does two nights at NYC's Poisson Rouge ... Philip Glass plays northern New England ... Emmylou Harris visits DogTown ... Fred Hersch sets the Jazz Standard ... k.d. lang plays the Canadian Maritimes ... Mandy Patinkin & Patti LuPone do Detroit ... Keersmaker troupe dances to Reich in Dresden ... Sara Watkins plays Vanderbilt ... Wilco releases DVD, signs copies at Knoxville shop for Record Store Day ... and more ...

Allen Toussaint's Nonesuch solo debut, The Bright Mississippi, is set for release on Tuesday, April 21. You can catch a glimpse of the songs, songwriters, and guest artists on the album and take a look behind-the-scenes with Toussaint at piano and producer Joe Henry at the boards in a short video on nonesuch.com/media. The Detroit Free Press gives the album four stars. Rolling Stone says it's "pure Toussaint, emotionally and structurally expansive, yet as keenly done as one of Toussaint's perfectly knotted ties." Dusted magazine says, "It’s quite simply one of the best albums we’ll hear in 2009."

Wilco has unveiled new concert dates as part of their upcoming North American summer tour, including concerts at four East Coast ballparks; shows in London and Dublin have also been added to their August European dates. The new concert DVD, Ashes of American Flags, is out this Saturday at independent retailers nationwide and in the Nonesuch Store. To celebrate the DVD release and to lend support to independent record stores, the band will make an in-store appearance at Disc Exchange in Knoxville, TN, Saturday at 2 PM.

For the past few days, Wilco has made a home-away-from-home in a very welcoming Milwaukee, Wisconsin, including Jeff Tweedy's first pitch in Monday's Brewers game and a sixth-inning sausage race with Glenn Kotche and Mikael Jorgensen. Wilco also played the first of two sold-out nights at the Pabst Theater last night, in which, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says, the band "gave a dusty jewel of a performance," concluding of this "gorgeous patchwork quilt of the set" that "when the entire band converged ... the music exploded beautifully." Tonight's show will be webcast live on wilcoworld.net.

Nonesuch Records has signed North Carolina–based trio the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a young string band in the centuries-old Piedmont banjo and fiddle musical tradition. The group’s members—Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson—all trade duties as singers and swap instruments, too. The band, which has toured continuously since its formation in 2005, has several US concert dates this spring before taking a summer sabbatical, during which Giddens is expecting her first child. They will resume touring in the fall; their label debut is scheduled for early 2010.

Audra McDonald returns to the stage in this summer's Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night. Audra, a four-time Tony winner, is making her Public Theater debut in the role of Olivia, joining a stellar cast that includes Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway, who stars as Viola, and Raúl Esparza, star of the 2007 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company. The show, directed by Daniel Sullivan, will run June 10–July 12 at the Delacorte Theater in New York's Central Park.

Youssou N'Dour and global non-profit IntraHealth International have teamed up with Indaba Music to launch a global remix contest, featuring Youssou's song "Wake Up (It’s Africa Calling)," from his most recent Nonesuch release, Rokku mi Rokka (Give and Take). Artists like Duncan Sheik, Nas, and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck have donated remixes of the song to raise funds for the IntraHealth OPEN initiative, which provides health workers in developing countries with the latest open-source software technologies. Now, the same tracks used by those artists are being made available to the global music community on Indaba, an online music collaboration tool, allowing fans to rework the song themselves.

The Nonesuch Records website, which was relaunched last summer, has been nominated for a Webby Award, the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, for Best Music Site. It is the only record label site nominated in any category this year. Also in the running in the Music category are NPR Music, Pitchfork, 8tracks, and Moshcam. Nonesuch.com was built by Sisu, Inc., an award-winning design studio that creates design and technology solutions for web and mobile. All nominees are eligible in the People's Voice voting as well, so share your voice at by voting at webbyawards.com.

Toumani Diabaté wrapped up his tour with Béla Fleck's Africa Project last week to kick off his own US tour with the Symmetric Orchestra this week in New Jersey and New York City. "The Symmetrics deliver a jubilant polyrhythmic party of percussion, electric guitars," says The Village Voice, "and Diabaté's 21-stringed instrument showering notes like a musical waterfall." Fleck and Diabaté are featured on NPR's Morning Edition; on which Renée Montagne describes, after a performance by Toumani: "I could sit all day and listen to that."

Ashes of American Flags, the new Wilco concert film directed by Christoph Green and Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, makes its New York debut tonight in a special screening at the IFC Center. It's part of Movie Night with Fred Armisen; the SNL cast member will also discuss the film with its directors. Wilco kicks off an extensive US tour tomorrow night in the first of two sold-out shows at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, after throwing out the first ball at the Brewers game tonight.

After releasing her debut solo album last week, Sara Watkins took to the road for the start of a monthlong tour in support of the new record. She played with Old Crow Medicine Show through the weekend, and tonight, she performs "Long Hot Summer Days" off the new album on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with the album's producer, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Look for support to come from Jimmy's house band, The Roots, as well.

David Byrne takes his "relentlessly captivating" (Observer) tour to Nottingham and London ... Afro-Cuban All Stars closes out US tour in Miami ... Laurie Anderson performs at Dutch art & tech fest ... Dan Auerbach ends Aussie tour at Boogie Festival ... Christina Courtin opens for Robin Hitchcock in NYC ... Toumani Diabaté plays two more shows with Béla Fleck ... Bill Frisell plays Chi-town and Minneapolis ... k.d. lang heads home for Canada tour ... The Low Anthem plays northern New England with Ray LaMontagne ... Brad Mehldau solos in Tunisia ... Orchestra Baobab plays the Netherlands ... Joshua Redman Trio sets up shop in Seattle residency ... Sara Watkins joins Old Crow Medicine Show in Atlanta ... Wilco concert film premieres in Seattle ... and more ...