In honor of Juneteenth and Black Music Month, Rhiannon Giddens is the guest on the latest episode of Topsify's BLK in America podcast. She talks with host Dr. Maurice Stinnett about growing up Black in America and shares some songs that inspire her. "It was my discovery of the music of North Carolina and what sort of became my life's mission that helped me figure out my identity." You can watch their conversation and listen to a playlist Giddens put together for the discussion here.

David Byrne’s American Utopia will return to Broadway this fall at the St. James Theatre, with the full original band, from September 17. "It is with great pleasure that finally, after a year+ like no other, I can announce that our show is coming back to Broadway," says Byrne. "You who kept the faith, who held on to your tickets, well, you knew this would happen eventually! September 17, remount previews begin. We’re moving to the St. James Theatre, just down 44th Street from the Hudson, where we were before. The stage is a little wider and the capacity is a little bigger—I guess we did alright! Seriously, New York is back, and given all we’ve witnessed, felt, and experienced, it is obvious to me that no one wants to go back to a world with EVERYTHING the way it was—we have an opportunity for a new world here. See you there.”

Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion have released "Other Song," from their upcoming album, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, and a video for it by Maureen Towey. The video was shot at Rise and Root Farm, a five-acre farm in New York’s Hudson Valley rooted in social justice and run cooperatively by four owners who are women, intergenerational, multi-racial, and LGBTQ; one of the owners, Karen Washington, is featured in the video. You can watch it here. Shaw says of the track: “I had these bits of ‘Other Song,’ so I made this abstract reduction, with a verse-chorus structure and a wild build in the middle. The prompt for all of us was: what would we make in the room together if there were no single person in charge, the way a band writes in the studio?”

Riz Ahmed, star of the Academy Award–winning film Sound of Metal, is the guest on the latest episode of percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie's podcast. He talks with Glennie about the film, in which he plays a punk-metal drummer who begins to unravel when he suddenly loses his hearing and identity. Glennie performs on the film's soundtrack, featuring a score by Abraham Marder and Nicolas Becker, which was released on Nonesuch Records in April. You can hear their conversation here.

David Byrne talks with hip-hop artist Open Mike Eagle on Fuse, a podcast from Bomb magazine. "Your music has been in my life for a very long time," Eagle says. "One of my earliest musical memories, when I was like five or six years old ... I think it’s like the second song I ever remember hearing was 'Burning Down the House' ... And, you know, 'Once in a Lifetime' is literally one of my favorite songs ever. Like if I were to make an objective top ten list, that song would be on there." You can hear their conversation here.

Stars in the House, the live-streamed series led by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley to benefit The Actors Fund, hosted the stars of the original 2005 Broadway production of Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza on Friday, and a 20th anniversary celebration of the 2001 Actors Fund benefit concert performance of Dreamgirls, of which Rudetsky was the musical director, on Saturday. You can watch both here.

Rhiannon Giddens’ new album, They're Calling Me Home, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, released earlier this year on CD and digital, is now on vinyl. Giddens and Turrisi, who both live in Ireland when they aren’t on tour, have been there since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The two expats found themselves drawn to the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland during lockdown. Exploring the emotions brought up by the moment, Giddens and Turrisi decamped to Hellfire, a small studio on a working farm outside of Dublin, to record these songs over six days. 

Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme is out now. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work—a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude. The album also includes an encore, “Variations ‘X’ and ‘Y.'" "I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues," Mehldau says of the piece, which combines the classical form with jazz harmonies. "While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress." You can watch a video for Variation 4 here.

The Magnetic Fields’ City Winery residency, originally scheduled for spring 2020 to celebrate their new album Quickies, has been rescheduled for October and November 2021. The band will perform at intimate City Winery venues in seven cities—Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville, Boston, New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. In addition to Quickies, the band will perform a wide variety of songs spanning their 30+ year career, including from the album 69 Love Songs.

Chris Thile was on NPR's Here & Now, from WBUR in Boston, to talk with host Robin Young about his new solo album, Laysongs—six original songs and three covers that contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. "If I have a religion now, it's trying to keep my ears wide open to the human beings that I encounter," Thile tells Young. "I worry that we as human beings have a tendency to find people who think and act and look like we do and we pod up ... I don't think that we're ever going to change someone's mind if we're not willing to be changed." You can hear their conversation here.

Chris Thile celebrates last week's Nonesuch release of Laysongs, his first truly solo album, with a US tour that includes a handful dates this summer—at Telluride Bluegrass Festival this week and along the East Coast in the coming months—and many more in the fall, starting in the Midwest, heading next to New England and New York, then down to the Southeast. 

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2021–22 concert season, sharing plans to reopen its landmark concert venue to the general public in October, and among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are Sō Percussion with Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, and Kronos Quartet; as well as Youssou N'Dour. The season also features works by composers including Caroline Shaw, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Michael Gordon.