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Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on across the globe this weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

John Adams's opera A Flowering Tree received its Midwest premiere in Chicago's Millennium Park on Wednesday, with the composer conducting. The Chicago Opera Theater continues its production on Saturday with Adams conducting again. Tickets: chicagooperatheater.org.

On Sunday, at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington, DC, The Choral Arts Society of Washington, under the direction of Norman Scribner, will perform Adams's oratorio El Niño, which received its world premiere at the Châtelet in Paris in 2000, directed by Peter Sellars with soloists Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Willard White, who recorded the piece for its Nonesuch release. Tickets: kennedy-center.org.

Also on Sunday, the San Fransisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, led by Benjamin Schwartz, will perform Adams's 1995 piece Lollapalooza at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, along with Stravinsky's Le Chant du rossignol and Dvořák's "New World" Symphony (sfsymphony.org); and the American Philharmonic Sonoma County, led by Gabriel Sakakeeny, will perform Short Ride in a Fast Machine at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California (wellsfargocenterarts.org).

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Laurie Anderson will bring her latest performance piece, Homeland, to Spain this weekend: at Auditorio de Garcia in Santiago de Compostela in the country's northwest tonight and Auditorio de Murcia, in Murcia in the southeast on Sunday night.

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After a couple of days in New York that included stops at Late Night with Conan O'Brien and WNYC's Soundcheck and a sold-out show at Terminal 5, The Black Keys are moving on to Philadelphia for a sold-out set at the Electric Factory tonight, then to Boston for a show at the Orpheum Theatre Saturday night. Its the last gig on this leg of the US tour before they head to Europe. Tickets: boston-theater.com.

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The European leg of the Raising Sands tour continues, with T Bone Burnett joining Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on stage in Stockholm, Sweden, tonight at the Stockholm Hovet (globearenas.se), and Oslo, Norway, on Sunday at the Oslo Spektrum (oslospektrum.no).

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Richard Goode joins the Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, with Peter Oundjian conducting, tonight at Salle Pleyel in Paris for a program of works by Jacques Hétu, Mozart, and Brahms. Tickets: sallepleyel.fr.

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Kronos Quartet is in Europe this month, performing tonight at the Internationales Congress Center as part of the Dresden International Music Festival in Dresden, Germany. The Quartet performs Terry Riley's 2002 piece Sun Rings, which was commissioned for the group by the NASA Art Program among many others. Tickets: musikfestspiel.com.

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Nicholas Payton began a four-night residency at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley in Seattle, Washington, as the special guest of vibes master Bobby Hutcherson. For this presentation of KPLU 88.5 NPR and the Pacific Jazz Institute, Payton and Hutcherson are joined by Joe Gilman on piano, Glen Richman on bass, and Eddie Marshall on drums. Remaining performances this weekend include two sets each tonight and tomorrow night, plus a 7:30 set on Sunday. Tickets: jazzalley.com.

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Punch Brothers are back in full swing with the next leg of their US tour. They'll be at the the Satellite Ballroom in Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight (satelliteballroom.com); the Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, Maryland, for two all-ages sets on Saturday, at 1 PM and 4 PM (tickets.ramsheadonstage.com); and the Mountain Stage Little Theatre in Charleston, West Virginia, on Sunday (mountainstage.org).

You can check out a recording of the band in concert on Live from Folk Alley now on folkalley.com. There's both video and streaming audio, as well as downloadable audio for members of the site, from a performance at The Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio, on April 2.

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Laura Veirs's solo tour continues with three stops this weekend: tonight at The 9:30 Listening Room in Louisville, Kentucky (the930.org); Saturday at The Basement in Nashville (thebasementnashville.com); and Sunday at The Earl in Atlanta (badearl.com); all with opener Liam Finn.

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Wilco two sold-out shows at The Pageant in St. Louis, Missouri, with opener Retribution Gospel Choir, featuring Alan Sparhawk of Low (thepageant.com). It's their last scheduled tour date before they ramp things up again for two shows in Alaska at the end of July with The Whipsaws.

David Byrne Remembers Robert Rauschenberg

David Byrne, in an op-ed contribution in today's New York Times, reflects on the life of the acclaimed American artist Robert Rauschenberg, who died Monday at the age of 82, recounting his own personal experiences with the man he knew as a friend, a colleague, and an inspiration.

In the piece, Byrne describes an early collaboration between them. He commissioned Rauschenberg create the artwork for what would become a special limited-edition version of the 1983 Talking Heads album Speaking in Tongues. Rauschenberg's concept involved a deconstruction of the album sleeve itself: separating the layers of color that are normally combined to create a single image and instead running them on translucent sheets of plastic, so that the image was altered with every shift in the position of the sheets. (Click on the image at left to see Side A, at right to see Side B.)

This is just one example Byrne cites of Rauschenberg's ability "not only think outside of the box, but to question the box's very existence," and then to inspire others to do the same. Writes Byrne:

His openness and way of seeing was contagious and inspired others in their own work — not to imitate and make pseudo-Rauschenbergs, but to see the whole world as a work of art. As corny as that may sound, that’s what he sometimes did.

To read the essay, visit nytimes.com.

Charlottesville's "The Hook" Talks with Chris Thile Before Tonight's Punch Bros. Set There

Punch Brothers began the next leg of their US tour last night at the Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, and performs at the Satellite Ballroom in Charlottesville, Virginia, tonight. Leading to tonight's show, Chris Thile spoke with the Charlottesville weekly The Hook about his career, the new band, and their Nonesuch debut record, Punch. Says The Hook's Vijith Assar, Chris has gone from being "the world's premiere young hotshot mandolin player" expected to be "the savior of bluegrass," to moving in "a new, decidedly more progressive route." You'll find the interview at readthehook.com.

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Listen to The Black Keys on WNYC's "Soundcheck"

The Black Keys played a killer set last night at New York City's Terminal 5, leaving more than a few Nonesuch staffers a bit bleary-eyed but all the better for it this morning. While in New York yesterday, the band stopped by the studios at WNYC, New York public radio, to talk with Soundcheck host John Schaefer about the making of the new record, Attack & Release, and working with producer Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse). Listen to the full 20-minute episode, with tracks off the new record---which WNYC calls "a dynamic CD of blues rock that avoids the genre's biggest pitfalls: studio polish"---and an exclusive alternate take of "Same Old Thing" here:

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Click here to add The Black Keys' Attack & Release CD directly to your Shopping Cart for $13 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

Photos from Adams's "A Flowering Tree" Chicago Premiere

As the Nonesuch Journal reported yesterday, John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, received its Midwest premiere last night in Chicago's Millennium Park, with the composer conducting. The Chicago Opera Theater production stars Natasha Jouhl as Kumudha, a young girl with the power to turn herself into a flowering tree; Noah Stewart as the Prince; and Sanford Sylvan, who has originated leading roles in two Adams operas (Chou En-Lai in Nixon in China and the title character in The Death of Klinghoffer), as the Storyteller. The next performance is this Saturday, with Adams conducting again.

Below are photos from the production and the dress rehearsal, starting with shot of John Adams leading rehearsal. Click on the image for the full-size photo, courtesy of the Chicago Opera Theater:

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Time Out NY: Orchestra Baobab Prove to Be Specialists in Many Styles on New Album

With Orchestra Baobab's new album, Made in Dakar, due out on Tuesday, the group's co-founder Barthélemy Attisso spoke with Time Out New York about the new album, the forthcoming tour, and the joys of bringing their music to the rest of the world.

Time Out's K. Leander Williams writes that Attisso has "been singled out as one of the most distinctive guitarist-arrangers the African continent has produced." In 2002, that singular sound met with another iconic musical ambassador when Youssou N'Dour produced what Williams calls the group's "triumphant reunion album," Specialist in All Styles. N'Dour's guest vocals on the new album leads to the "gorgeous update" of the band's classic song "Nijaay" and proves another example of the band's effort to showcase as many of their musical interests as possible:

Along with the harder-edged album tracks "Sibam" and "Ndeleng Ndeleng," the new version of "Nijaay" has been subtly outfitted with rhythmic flourishes that mirror the griot music N'Dour turned into the Senegalese rock style mbalax.

To read the article, visit timeout.com/newyork.

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Click here to pre-order Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar CD now for $16 and download the album MP3s, including the exclusive Nonesuch Store bonus track, "Mamadou," on release day, May 20.

Click here to add 2002's Specialist in All Styles  directly to your Shopping Cart for $16 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

NPR: The Black Keys Play "Unabashed, Hard-Driving Rock Show"

When faced with the conundrum of deciding between two shows by The Black Keys over consecutive nights at Washington, DC's 9:30 Club, DCist's Valerie Paschall looked to Dan Auerbach's promise in Monday's first-night set: "We'll play better tonight and we'll play more songs tomorrow night."

Whether or not they held to that, the duo, whose "multi-faceted sound has aspects that can appeal to fans of multiple genres," reports DCist, "had complete command of the sold-out crowd" Monday night. Writes Paschall:

Carney pounds the drums with such strength and precision that the tips of his drumsticks had completely broken off. ... [B]oth men are masters of their craft and Auerbach in particular can make his guitar wail like it's just been left on the side of a cold rainy highway. There's even a slight psychedelia to his guitar solos which were perfectly accented by the roving light show.

To read the Monday concert review, visit dcist.com.

As for Tuesday's show, you can judge for yourself whether more is also better: NPR.org broadcast the show live and has added the recording to the All Songs Considered Live in Concert site, along with a pre-show interview with host Bob Boilen. NPR calls their latest album, Attack & Release, an "arresting mix of crunchy guitars and thundering rhythms" that also shows "a more thoughtful side" and says the Tuesday set was "an unabashed, hard-driving rock show." Listen now at npr.org.

The band arrived in New York yesterday for an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (you can see video footage at brooklynvegan.com) and to play a sold-out show tonight at Terminal 5. They've got another sold-out show at Philadelphia's Electric Factory tomorrow night, then head up to Boston for a show at the Orpheum Theatre Saturday night, their last gig on this leg of the US tour before hitting Europe, Australia, and New Zealand next. Leading up to the Orpheum show, Patrick and Dan spoke with the Boston Herald about their varied musical influences, the new record, and what the audience can expect at the live show. To read the article, visit bostonherald.com.

New York Press has an interview with Patrick about the new record, yes, but also about sports at home in Ohio. After talking with Press's LaRue Cook about the ups and downs of Cleveland fandom, Pat reveals some of the details of the band's working relationship with Attack & Release producer Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton:

Dan [Auerbach] and I pay attention to the overall sound and sonic side of the music. Brian pays attention to shit we normally don’t, things like tempo. He basically had us deconstruct the demos we already had and start from scratch. Like "Psychotic Girl," for instance, started out as a fast-paced garage rock track, and Brian said we should try it much slower, then he built a drum loop out of white noise to keep tempo. It was the most fun I'd ever had recording an album.

To read the full interview, visit nypress.com.

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Click here to add The Black Keys' Attack & Release CD directly to your Shopping Cart for $13 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

Wilco Rocks the Streets of Lawrence, Kansas

Wilco fans took to the streets last night for the first outdoor concert held on the corner of Ninth and New Hampshire Streets in Lawrence, Kansas, which locals hope will be the first of many such events, according to the Lawrence Journal-World & News. A portion of the proceeds from the concert concessions will go to support the Lawrence Arts Center, which sits just next to the site.

Visit www2.ljworld.com for the report from the event; pore through a photo gallery, with more pictures like the above of Glenn Kotche by photographer John Henry; and watch the area TV news coverage on local channel 6.

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Click here to add Wilco's Sky Blue Sky deluxe CD+DVD directly to your Shopping Cart for $21, along with the album MP3s at no additional cost. For Wilco's complete Nonesuch catalog, click here.

BBC Talks with Emmylou Harris, "The Voice of an Angel," About Forthcoming Album

Emmylou Harris appeared on the latest episode of The Ticket, the arts and entertainment program from the BBC World Service, last Saturday, to discuss her storied career, her recent induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and her forthcoming album, All I Intended to Be, due out June 10.

The show's host, Mark Coles, introduces Emmylou in the opening segment as possessing "the voice of an angel, not a grievous bone in her body," referencing the seminal Gram Parsons album Grievous Angel, on which she famously duets with Parsons. In the interview, Emmylou credits Parsons with helping her find her true voice and opening her to "the real beauty and finesse and poetry in country music," which ultimately set her on her musical path.

There's much more from on The Ticket from Emmylou, whose segment opens the show. You can listen now at bbc.co.uk.

Star-Telegram: T Bone Burnett's New Album "A Tour-de-Force of Style and Substance"

Yesterday marked the release of T Bone Burnett's Nonesuch debut, Tooth of Crime, featuring songs based on work he began more than a decade ago for Sam Shepard's play of the same name, about the pitfalls of a fame-obsessed culture. The Dallas News calls it "a fittingly eclectic musical opus" from the multi-talented musician, and the nearby Fort Worth Star-Telegram, T Bone's hometown paper, gives the album four stars and sees in it a decidedly Texan influence, "pulling from the bewitching tangle of influences that indelibly mark the songs crafted by Texas artists---a little rock, a little country, a little psychedelia and a dose of anguish, just for good measure."

Writes the Star-Telegram's Preston Jones:

Throughout his solo recording career and his lauded work as a producer, Burnett has excelled at creating and sustaining moods---it's his trademark, one springing to florid life on Crime. The twisted, tense soundscapes grab hold from the unsettling opener, "Anything I Say Can and Will Be Used Against You," extending into the funereal "Dope Island," a sinister track aided greatly by frequent Burnett collaborator Sam Phillips.

Jones concludes that the new album "explodes like a fever dream but lingers on the margins of your mind. It's a tour-de-force of style and substance, reinforcing Burnett's standing as one of music's most essential talents." To read the review, visit star-telegram.com.

Further east, the Boston Globe's Jonathan Perry finds in Tooth of Crime "an atmospheric, enigmatic collection that examines fame and its fallout---isolation, disillusionment." He calls it "sumptuously spooky" and points as well to "Dope Island" as a "pungent highlight ... sung with smoke-and-velvet-voiced languor" by Phillips. Visit boston.com for more.

USA Today's Edna Gundersen sees T Bone's meditation on fame as having evolved from its origins in Shepard's play "to survey today's identity crises and cultural chaos, filtered through Burnett’s wicked humor." She also points to "Anything I Say" as a highlight and concludes: "Tooth serves up brain food, not pop candy." Read more at blogs.usatoday.com.

BlogCritics' Richard Marcus also comments on T Bone's take on celebrity but says listeners won't find any overly literal assault on that national obsession. "Burnett is far more subtle than that," writes Marcus. "The music and the lyrics of each song combine to create almost abstract impressions expressing a mood or emotion that illustrates an aspect of the theme."

Tooth of Crime, says the reviewer, "is not just an example of Burnett going places that other popular musicians would fear to tread, it's also an indication of just how much he invests of himself into a project." Even independent of the play that inspired it, "the CD stands as a work of art in its own right." He concludes:

There are not many composers of any genre who are as capable of creating music that rewards its listeners to the extent that T Bone Burnett does. Not only is he an innovative musician he is also an intelligent lyricist. On Tooth of Crime he demonstrates just how gifted he is in both areas.

To read the article, visit blogcritics.org.

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Click here to add the Tooth of Crime CD directly to your Shopping Cart for $16 and download the album MP3s at no extra charge.

Chicago Tribune: John Adams's "Luminously Beautiful" Opera "A Flowering Tree" Opens in Chicago

John Adams's opera A Flowering Tree receives its Midwest premiere tonight in the Chicago Opera Theater performance at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance at Millenium Park. The composer will conduct the opening night performance as well as the second performance, this Saturday. Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein says the piece offers "the light of hope and renewal" and concludes: "Nobody who loves contemporary opera and music theater can afford to miss it."

A Flowering Tree, based on a Southern Indian folktale, is "Adams's answer to Mozart's The Magic Flute," writes von Rhein. "Both operas invoke the magic of transformation, both physical and spiritual." He goes on to write, "Adams' music is luminously beautiful, the entire opera a glorious multicultural paean to the ecology of the soul."

To read the article, with more details, visit chicagotribune.com. To learn more about the Chicago Opera Theater's production, its companion arts festival, India Blooms in Chicago, and tickets, visit chicagooperatheater.org. Check in with the Nonesuch Journal in the coming months for news of the premiere recording of A Flowering Tree, due out on Nonesuch this fall.

The Black Keys Play Conan Tonight, Take on Grand Theft Auto

The Black Keys, fresh off the live NPR.org webcast of their second successive sold-out gig at Washington, DC's 9:30 Club last night, are in New York City today to perform on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The band will perform "Strange Times" off their latest ablum, Attack & Release, which remains the No. 1 record on college radio for an amazing fifth straight week. Late Night starts at 12:30 AM ET on NBC; also scheduled to appear: Gossip Girl's own Blair Waldorf, Leighton Meester. Visit nbc.com for details.

Before that show hits the air, Patrick and Dan will be taking a detour to Liberty City: they'll be taking on fans in a joint gaming session of Grand Theft Auto IV with Xbox LIVE Gold members, from 7-8:30 PM ET, as part of the Xbox Game with Fame series. For information on how you can match up against the guys, visit xbox.com.

The guys gave an interview to WTMD, 89.7 FM, Towson University public radio in Maryland, backstage at the 9:30 Club to discuss the making of Attack & Release. Says Patrick of the philosophy behind the recording: "We were trying to stay outside of the box, but inside of the bun." Click here to listen.

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Laurie Anderson Talks to "The Progressive" About "Homeland"

Laurie Anderson recently appeared on Progressive Radio, the weekly broadcast hosted by The Progressive magazine's editor Matthew Rothschild, to discuss her latest project, Homeland, and the many socio-political issues it addresses, most notably the war in Iraq and the challenges of forming a coherent opposition to it when faced with an administration so well-schooled in framing the issue, or as she sees it, story telling. In light of this, her response was to tell her own version of the story, through Homeland.

"As an artist," she tells Rothschild, "I don't think that art is the best way to do politics. But I can't help it now. It's invaded too much of my own life, and it's invaded it in a way that's very basic, which is on the level of story telling." The method, she reveals, is a basic one: "I really do try to open my eyes. You don't have to make anything up. All you have to do is point over to various things that are happening."

Anderson points out that she when she set out to respond to very real threats, like the events of 9/11 and the resulting restrictions on civil liberties, her aim was never to react blindly to them but to open up the dialog about possible solutions. It is something she feels the government ignored, acting with little or no transparency, and few demanded.

"I'll tell you," she says, "I don't hear those voices. I don't hear, now that Susan Sontag is gone, who's speaking up? Where are the American intellectuals, the American artists, standing up and saying things. I just don't hear it. It's like a deafening silence."

With Homeland, Laurie hopes to open the dialog by bringing its absence to light. She performs the piece tonight at the Teatro Central in Sevilla, Spain, and then at the Auditoria de Garcia in Santiago de Compostela, in that country's northwestern region, on Friday.

To read excerpts from the transcripts and to listen to the complete 28-minute interview, visit progressive.org.

The Tennessean: Laura Veirs Brings "Engagingly Intimate" "Saltbreakers" Songs on Tour

Laura Veirs brings her solo tour to Turner Hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, tonight with opener Liam Finn. She spoke with ExpressMilwaukee about her latest Nonesuch release, 2007's Saltbreakers, and the complications that come from being both a songwriter and an un-tortured soul, as well as the joys of life in her new home of Portland, Oregon. To read the interview, visit expressmilwaukee.com.

This weekend, after a number of shows in the Midwest, the tour will make its way south and include a stop at Nashville's The Basement on Saturday night. The Tennessean's Nicole Keiper says that Saltbreakers is of particular interest to Nashvilleans for the track "To the Country," which was recorded at June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash's former cabin there. Keiper says "its thickly, lushly layered voices and delicate melodic movements, recalls Sufjan Stevens' smart, intricate pop more than the inimitable country we associate with that space."

Keiper sees the interplay between music and lyrics in Laura's work as "a lovely one, and the album being the singer's self-described most vulnerable offering, it's an engagingly intimate one, too." To read more, visit tennessean.com.

Happy Birthday to David Byrne; Bryne to Create Sound Installation from NYC Building This Month

"Today is an important occasion," says David Byrne in the opening words to his 2007 Nonesuch release, The Knee Plays. Indeed. Today is his 56th birthday, and Nonesuch wishes him a very happy one. We don't know how he'll celebrate the occasion or what birthday gifts will be heading his way, but here you can enjoy "(The Gift of Sound) Where the Sun Never Goes Down," also from The Knee Plays:

Byrne will celebrate the gift of sound in a different way in downtown New York this summer. He'll be turning an entire building in lower Manhattan---the landmark Battery Maritime Building---into an interactive and, in his humble words, "very large musical instrument" called Playing the Building. (It's 9,000 square feet.) The exhibit opens on May 31 and runs through August 10; it will be free and open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. On davidbyrne.com, David describes it this way:

Playing the Building is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure---to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes---and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

This exhibit (the photo at right is a mock-up) is presented by Creative Time, which has organized a number of unique, site-specific sound installations in the city, throughout its 30-year history, including 2002's Sonic Garden at the World Financial Center with David Byrne and Laurie Anderson.

For more information, visit davidbyrne.com. or creativetime.org/byrne.

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