journal.nonesuch.com

Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra BBC Radio 3 Award Nominees

Nominees for the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music have been announced, and Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra is among them, for the second year in a row. The winning artists will be revealed on April 17, 2008, at a ceremony in London, airing on Radio 3 the next day; a concert featuring the Award winners will take place that summer.

And following the success of a recent tour through Europe and North America, the Symmetric Orchestra will make its way to Australia and New Zealand next year.

Kronos Quartet and Tom Waits "Undisputed Highlight" of Neil Young's Bridge School Show

Kronos Quartet and Tom Waits performed last Saturday and Sunday for 40,000+ people at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, as part of the 21st annual Bridge School Benefit organized by Neil Young and his wife, Pegi. Reports all point to the Waits/Kronos set as "the day's most thrilling" (San Jose Mercury News) and "the undisputed highlight of the concert" (Rolling Stone).

The Wall Street Journal agrees. In yesterday's Journal, Jim Fusilli writes that "Kronos added a swirling, slashing and altogether thrilling accent to Mr. Waits's singular songs." He points, in particular, to the Quartet's "tender support for Mr. Waits's miraculous ballad 'Day After Tomorrow' and violinist David Harrington's gypsy solos in 'Way Down in the Hole'" for giving Waits's music "the kind of exploration and attention it deserves while accenting the gravitas it already has. He's a national treasure and so is Kronos, as their set illustrated with stunning clarity."

Joel Selvin, the senior pop music critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, also calls attention to the "Way Down in the Hole" performance. It's a song that's gotten a lot of attention over the past few years as the show opener on HBO's acclaimed series The Wire, with a different performer interpreting the song each season. According to Selvin, Waits's own interpretation for the Bridge show was a memorable one in a "sensational set" that embodies what the benefit has come to represent: "The Bridge concert is known for exactly such one-of-a-kind events as Waits, who makes very few public performances in any case, doubling up with Kronos, the celebrated San Francisco classical renegades."

Kronos and Waits have performed together before. In 2003, they joined forces for a benefit concert in support of Richard Gere's Healing the Divide organization. (You can hear the track "God's Away on Business" from that event on the Kronos MySpace page.) Even so, the Contra Costa Times says that last weekend's reunion "felt like we were witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. The ensemble produced utterly spine-chilling versions of some of Waits's finest compositions."

Brad Kava, writing on Kava's Radio Soup, calls the inspired pairing "a tour de force for the Bridge," and praises Waits for "using an acoustic forum before 20,000 people [each night] to really try something adventurous ... one of the the most artistic moments in 21 years of Bridge School benefit concerts."

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Photos courtesy of Sidney Chen.

"Youssou N'Dour: Return to Gorée" at Austin Film Society

On Tuesday, November 6, the Austin Film Society will present a screening of Youssou N'Dour: Return to Gorée. The 2006 documentary, directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, follows Youssou and his band through Europe to a powerful performance at Gorée, the island off the coast of Senegal's capital that, for centuries, served as the final departure point for newly enslaved Africans. The screening is part of the Film Society's monthlong series Torn from the Motherland: Films from the African Diaspora, designed "to appreciate Pan-Africanist creativity under the cold realities of slavery, imperialism, colonization and neo-colonialism." For more information, visit austinfilm.org.

Richard Goode on His Southbank Residency, Dawn Upshaw

Richard Goode begins his artist residency as Associate Artist at London's Southbank Centre for the 2007-08 season in a November 7 concert with Dawn Upshaw. On the program is Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens; Berg's Piano Sonata, Op. 1; and songs by Debussy and Wolf. Goode describes working with Dawn as "one of the purest pleasures of my musical life." The two collaborated, notably, on a Nonesuch recording of Goethe Lieder in 1994.

The pianist recently sat down for an interview on the Southbank Centre's website to discuss his residency, which also includes a solo recital, a lecture-demonstration, a master class, and a two-piano performance with Jonathan Biss. You can listen to the interview on southbankcentre.co.uk.

Pat Metheny Contest for "Day Trip" Pre-Orders

Two lucky Pat Metheny fans will soon find themselves the owners of a brand-new Polk Audio iSonic home-entertainment system. To celebrate the upcoming release of Pat's new record, Day Trip, with Christian McBride on bass and drummer Antonio Sanchez, patmetheny.com announced a contest with the two Polk consoles as the grand prize and signed copies of the record for 50 runner-up winners.

Everyone who pre-orders Day Trip from the site is automatically entered to win. In addition, all pre-order customers will be sent a link for two bonus live tracks on the album's release date, January 29, 2009.

For more information, visit patmetheny.com.

Video: Wilco "Austin City Limits" Sneak Peek

As reported yesterday, Wilco's latest performance at Austin City Limits will air on PBS stations across the country this Saturday. You can now catch a sneak peek of the band's ACL performance of "Impossible Germany" from Sky Blue Sky below, thanks to wilcoworld.net:

"Guitar Gods" Sérgio and Odair Assad Lauded on Tour

Guitar virtuosos Sérgio and Odair Assad recently performed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as part of a nationwide tour in support of their new album, Jardim Abandonado. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's music critic Tom Strini, a guitarist himself, was left in awe:

Their speed, their gorgeous tone, their ease reaching over the body of the guitar to its extreme high range, their uncanny musical memories (not a page of music appeared on the stage), and their ability to play thousands of notes without a single clinker, click or buzz are the stuff of guitar gods.

The challenges presented by the duo's eclectic repertoire "melted away before the Assads' consummate skill, in an inspiring concert that celebrated the swooping energy of musical phrases and the irresistible beauty of the sound of two guitars."

Not long after that performance, the Assads opened the new season of the Seattle Symphony's guitar seres and received another glowing review, this time from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Music critic I.M. Campbell writes that "the Assads displayed all the taste and refinement for which they are known ... their music gleams with such innate virtuosity."

Listen to selections from the album in an recent Nonesuch Journal post.

Video: Randy Newman Has "A Few Words"

With the song "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country," Randy Newman puts the current state of the union into context, as only he can do. He published the lyrics from the song in a New York Times op-ed piece earlier this year in response to the George Bush's own State of the Union address.

Watch Randy perform "A Few Words" here:

Read the complete lyrics at randynewman.com.

UK Poll: Philip Glass Among Greatest Living Geniuses

A new list of the world's 100 greatest living geniuses features an eclectic group, with Philip Glass, in the top ten, joining the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, and, yes, Simpsons creator Matt Groening. According to The Guardian, an international consulting firm compiled the list after polling 4,000 Brits, and ranked the winners based on how much their work "turned conventional thinking on its head, the popular acclaim they received, their intellectual power, their achievements, and their cultural importance."

For further details, visit guardian.co.uk.

Can Johnny Depp Sing? Tim Burton Says Yes

The Associated Press has posted a preview of the upcoming holiday films, and Sweeney Todd and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (with a score by Jonny Greenwood) have made the list.

About Sweeney, AP asks "the season's big musical question: Can Johnny Depp sing?" And director Tim Burton replies with a resounding "yes": "He's a very musical person, but when he said he would do it, nobody had any idea if he could sing. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have said yes to doing it if he couldn't ... It's one of my favorite roles that Johnny has done." And he should know: Sweeney is the pair's sixth film collaboration.

Hear for yourselves on the film's soundtrack, due out on Nonesuch in December. Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood is due out then as well.

Remembering Moondog, Influence on Steve Reich and Philip Glass

In Sunday's New York Times, writer John Strausbaugh remembers Moondog, the avant-garde street poet/performer/composer who influenced the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. This "Viking of Sixth Avenue," as he was known, was a longtime fixture on the corner of Manhattan's Sixth Avenue and 54th Street through the early '70s. And though he passed away in 1999 at the age of 83, Moondog, a new book by Robert Scotto makes clear the artist's lasting influence. In the book's preface, Philip Glass writes that he and Reich took Moondog's work "very seriously and understood and appreciated it much more than what we were exposed to at Julliard.”

A festival featuring Moondog's work (alongside that of Beethoven and Bach, among others) will take place this weekend at the Advent Lutheran Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Wilco on "Austin City Limits" This Saturday

"When people ask what kind of music Austin City Limits stands for, there's one band that sums it up better than any other ... Wilco!" So says ACL producer Terry Lickona in opening the band's latest performance on the series, which airs this Saturday, November 3, on PBS stations across the country. Check your local PBS station for air dates and times near you to watch Wilco perform songs from its latest album, Sky Blue Sky, along with some classics.

Mini-site Unveiled for Youssou N'Dour's "Extraordinary" New Album

Youssou N'Dour's latest album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), hits stores tomorrow, and it's already earning rave reviews. Earlier this month, on NPR's All Songs Considered, Rolling Stone contributing editor Robert Christgau called Youssou and Super Étoile "the best band in the world." It seems the press in London would agree: The Financial Times, BBC Music magazine, and the Guardian's Observer Music Monthly all give the new album their highest rating, five stars, with the Observer calling it "extraordinary" and "a new pinnacle in Youssou's career."

In conjunction with the record's release, Nonesuch.com unveils a new mini-site featuring video interviews with Youssou and musicologist Lucy Duran, plus songs from the new album. Click at the end of this post to read excerpts from the interview transcript, in which Youssou reflects on the diversity of Senegal's many musical and cultural traditions.

To enter the mini-site, click here.

New Magnetic Fields Album Announced for January

Nonesuch Records is happy to announce that the new album by The Magnetic Fields, Distortion, will be released on January 15, 2008. The band will perform a small number of US tour dates in February and March. Specific details regarding venues and ticket pre-sales will be announced shortly.

For all the latest news from The Magnetic Fields and to sign up for the band's newsletter, visit houseoftomorrow.com.

MSN Must-See Movies: "Sweeney Todd" and "There Will Be Blood"

MSN has announced its list of the upcoming holiday season's must-see movies, and both Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood are among the top ten. Soundtracks from both films will be available from Nonesuch this December.

In recommending Sweeney, MSN has this to say "Combine Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical of a revenge-seeking barber, Tim Burton's distinctive vision, the charisma of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and you're up for one hell of a bloody (literally) ride."
 
And as for a standout performance, the site singles out Depp, who, the article reads, "is said to channel David Bowie in a rock-star interpretation of the demon barber role. Place your Golden Globes bets now, because he will definitely earn a nomination."

There Will Be Blood, the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, stars Daniel Day-Lewis as an early 20th-century oil tycoon. MSN praises Day-Lewis's co-star Paul Dano (best known as the dour, Nietzsche-loving brother in Little Miss Sunshine) and sees a Best Supporting Actor nod in his future. Another powerful player in the film is its score by guitarist/composer Jonny Greenwood.

For the complete top-ten list, visit msn.com.

John Adams Klinghoffer Choruses on BBC Radio

On Friday night, London's Barbican Centre celebrated John Adams's 60th birthday in style. For the occasion, Adams conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a program featuring his own Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer, as well as Britten's Symphony for Cello and Orchestra and the London premiere of Colin Matthews's Reflected Images.

BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting the concert on today's Performance on 3 program and will continue to stream the performance online for the next seven days.

To listen, visit bbc.co.uk.

Stephin Merritt's "Meaning of Lice"

Stephin Merritt has joined Rufus Wainwright, Imogen Heap, Brian Eno, and others in contributing tracks to Plague Songs, a UK compilation that pays homage, in song, to the Biblical plagues. He's written a little ditty about lice, or more precisely, "The Meaning of Lice," and Pitchforkmedia.com has this to say:

Only one man could successfully write and record a wistful, feel-good, disco-danceable, three-minute ode to parasites and pestilence—with a chorus that includes the word "subcutaneous"—and that man is Stephin Merritt.

To listen to Stephin's pestilential offering, click here.

Steve Reich's Triple Quartet on Itzhak Perlman Program at Met Museum

Tomorrow night, Itzhak Perlman joins members of the Perlman Music Program for gifted young musicians in concert at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Included on the program is Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, along with Mozart's G Minor Quintet for Viola and Strings and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. Nonesuch released the world premiere recording of the Reich piece, performed by Kronos Quartet, in 2001.

For more information on the concert, visit metmuseum.org.

Further Praise for Sweeney Todd Tour

Boston Now joins the critical mass in praising this week's kick-off of the Sweeney Todd national tour at Boston's Colonial Theatre, saying "It works gloriously." Entertainment Editor John Black offers high praise indeed when he writes: "On a night when it seemed that the entire city was staying at home to watch the Red Sox in the World Series, a few lucky thousand were seated at the Colonial Theatre watching a thrilling tale of revenge, romance, murder, and meat pies." Citing the recent Tony-winning Broadway production, Black writes, "The play obviously has a pedigree. Thirty minutes into the show at the Colonial, you will know why."

To read the complete review, visit bostonnow.com.

For more on the tour, see today's previous post.

Boston Globe: New Sweeney Todd Tour "Marvelous"

The first national tour of John Doyle's Tony Award–winning Sweeney Todd reinvention kicked off at Boston's Colonial Theatre on Tuesday night, to rave reviews. According to Boston Globe critic Louise Kennedy, the production "reveals Stephen Sondheim's dark brilliance in all its cold-blooded glory. It is marvelous and terrible to behold."

Many members of the Broadway cast—who can be heard on the 2006 Nonesuch recording—return for the tour; and as on Broadway, they play their own instruments on stage. According to Kennedy, this "lets us hear the wonderfully consonant dissonances of Sondheim's score more clearly than ever; stripping the music bare reveals its coolly coherent structure and seemingly effortless flow ... It feels truer to the spirit of the piece."

Joining the cast on tour are David Hass as the demon barber himself and Judy Kaye as his cohort in crime, Mrs. Lovett, whom the Globe review calls "nastily hilarious."

To read the complete review in the Boston Globe, visit boston.com.

Sweeney Todd will play in Boston through November 4, when it will travel to Toronto, then on to more than a dozen cities across the US. For all the information on the tour, including locations and dates, visit sweeneytoddtour.com.

Pat Metheny Behind-the-Scenes Podcasts for "Secret Story" Reissue

Pat Metheny has recorded two new podcasts to coincide with the recent two-disc reissue of his album Secret Story. The new deluxe edition includes a re-mastered version of the original 1992 album, plus a bonus disc of previously unreleased tracks recorded at the original sessions. You can listen to the podcasts here:

Episode 1: Secret Story—Deluxe Edition (12:23)
Pat discusses the process of returning to the studio to re-master the original Secret Story tapes and putting the finishing touches on the five tracks from the session only now available on the reissue.

Episode 2: Secret Story—Original Album Commentary (35:13)
Pat leads listeners through the original album, with commentary on each of the 14 tracks.

You can also access the podcasts at patmetheny.com via the Music & Media section's podcast menu.

Alex Ross and Blogger Whimsy

In an interview with the blog-hosting service TypePad, Alex Ross—book author, New Yorker music critic, and TypePad blogger (The Rest Is Noise)—xplains why he finds the act of blogging "irresistible": "The blog allows me to indulge in a kind of writing that I couldn't pull off anywhere else—a little bit sly, a little bit whimsical, a little bit aphoristic, a little bit poetic ..."

Another blogger whose writing displays that sort of whimsy is none other than Sidney Chen, the artistic administrator for Kronos Quartet, a former Nonesuch employee, and the creator of the blog The Standing Room (TSR). Ross says he's a regular TSR reader and finds that the site "casts a very smart and sly eye on the classical world."

Perhaps he is referring to the recent TSR entry covering a lecture-discussion in San Francisco among Ross, critic John Rockwell, and singer Linda Ronstadt, in which Ross admitted to having, in his college days, walked around campus singing the "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" aria from John Adams's Nixon in China. The admission was followed by a small clearing of the throat by Ross and then a moment of anticipation. "Will there be a performance?!?" TSR wonders. But it was not to be. "Alas. He drinks some water instead."

Read the interview with Alex Ross at everything.typepad.com.

Visit his blog at therestisnoise.com. Visit Sid's blog at thestandingroom.com.

David Byrne and the Genius of Photography

Starting tonight, and running Thursdays through November 29, BBC Four will air a documentary series in the UK titled The Genius of Photography. In an essay on the BBC's website, Tim Kirby, the show's producer, tracks the evolution of photographs from snapshots into fine art. In an era when the "minutiae of daily life is the stuff of contemporary art," he writes, the camera is particularly well suited to capture the contemporary ethos.

The article begins with a quote on the subject from David Byrne: "The eye and brain edit things out," he says, "so you only see the things you're interested in. The camera sees what it wants to see, but it's not exactly what the eye wants to see. It's like having another eye that you hold in your hand, but it's an interesting, different kind of eye."

To read the essay, visit news.bbc.co.uk. Those in the UK can catch the broadcast Thursdays on BBC Four at 9 PM BST.

For photos by David Byrne, visit davidbyrne.com.

Remembering a Magical Sweeney Todd Performance

Time Out New York, in honor of its special ticket issue, asks readers to send in pictures of their most prized ticket stubs from those unforgettable moments in life—"from the first baseball game you attended with your dad to that magical performance by Patti LuPone in Sweeney Todd." A prize will go to the ticket with the most compelling backstory out there. For all the details, visit timeout.com.

For more on the recording of LuPone's magical Sweeney Todd performance, click here.

Sweeney Todd "First Look" at Lincoln Center Event with Tim Burton

On November 14 in New York City, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will present An Evening with Tim Burton, featuring a conversation with the director and a sneak peek at clips from his film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. As reported in today's playbill.com, the special event will also include clips from a number of films from throughout Burton's illustrious 35-year career, no doubt including some from his previous five collaborations with Depp. But the evening's highlight will surely be the "first look" at scenes from Sweeney, which doesn't hit theaters until December. Nonesuch will release the film's soundtrack recording in December as well.

For information on tickets to the event, visit filmlinc.com.

Caetano Veloso on Rolling Stone's 100 Best Brazilian Records of All Time

Rolling Stone Brazil has just released its list of the 100 Best Brazilian Records of all time, and Caetano Veloso, with four records on the list, is among the artists garnering the most mentions. Earning the second slot on the album list (after Novos Baianos's Acabou Chorare) is Tropicália or Panis et Circencis, the seminal 1968 album that introduced Caetano and Gilberto Gil as "artists searching for a universal language" to the world outside Brazil, and, ultimately, led to difficulties with the country's authoritarian regime. Transa, which Caetano recorded during his exile in England in 1972, closes out the top 10.

The list was compiled from responses by 60 Brazilian music experts asked to list the 20 best Brazilian albums, in no particular order, based on historical relevance and artistic influence.

For a detailed run-down of the top 10 records, in Portuguese, visit rollingstone.com.br.

To read Brazzil magazine's report on the full list, in English, visit brazzilmag.com.

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Caetano kicks off a North American tour at Boston's Orpheum Theatre on November 2, with stops in DC, North Carolina, Michigan, Toronto, California, New York, and Florida scheduled throughout the month. For tour dates and information, click here.

New Yorker: Assads "Jardim Abandonado" Exquisite

In the October 29 issue of The New Yorker, writer Russell Platt reviews Jardim Abandonado, the new record by Sérgio and Odair Assad, calling the Brazilian brothers' take on four classic tunes by Antônio Carlos Jobim "exquisite miniatures of ardent desire and ineffable regret." Platt also singles out the album's two transcriptions of French composer Darius Milhaud's "Scaramouche," which, in the Assads hands, "become mellow drops of sunshine"; and the album's "pièce de résistance ... a transcription of 'Rhapsody in Blue.' Instead of the crazy energy of Manhattan, we get the sultry glamour of Rio de Janeiro."

The album also features a work by Sérgio himself, four from his daughter Clarice, two pieces from Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, and a version of Adam Guettel's Octet from his Tony Award–winning The Light in the Piazza. For Platt, the Assads' arrangements "give all the pieces, whether popular or classical, an intimate sense of tonal richness and a new range of scintillating colors."

Listen to tracks from Jardim Abandonado:

"Brazileira" from Scaramouche (Milhaud) 2:11

"Vif" from Scaramouche (Milhaud) 3:13

"Jardim Abandonado" (Jobim) 2:33

"Rhapsody in Blue" (excerpt) (Gershwin) 0:30

To read the complete New Yorker review, visit newyorker.com. 

For more information on Jardim Abandonado, click here.

Nellie McKay, "Ry Cooder of the Ukulele"?

Singer/songwriter Nellie McKay has made a name for herself setting witty, politically savvy lyrics, tongue firmly in cheek, to catchy music reminiscent of Brill Building tunesmiths. (Evidence of this can be found on Audra McDonald's 2006 album Build a Bridge, on which she sings McKay's "I Wanna Get Married." Sample lyric: "I need to cook meals / I wanna pack you cute little lunches / For my Brady bunches / Then read Danielle Steele.")

Nellie seems to be sticking to her guns on her new record, Obligatory Villagers. She tells HARP magazine in the latest issue that she modeled the new album after "proletarian anthems and the fact that I was hoping to become the Ry Cooder of the ukulele."

To read the full interview, visit harpmagazine.com.

NY Post "Blown Away" by "Raisin in the Sun" TV Movie with Audra McDonald

There's no doubt about what New York Post writer Adam Buckman will be doing on February 25: watching ABC's TV-movie version of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Audra McDonald and her co-stars from the play's 2004 Broadway revival: Sean "Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. In today's Post, Buckman calls the movie "so rewarding that it figures to be the cultural high point of the current TV season." After attending a private screening of the film, Buckman was "blown away," calling the performances "top-drawer."

To read the complete article, visit nypost.com.

Music Box: T Bone Burnett, Sam Phillips Stand-Outs on New Plant/Krauss CD

In the latest issue of The Music Box, writer John Metzger reviews the new Robert Plant / Alison Krauss collaboration, Raising Sand. Metzger has kind words for the two singers but saves his highest praise for the album's producer, T Bone Burnett. He calls the project "Burnett's baby" and expects that fans of T Bone's work on Sam Phillips’s A Boot and a Shoe, in particular, will appreciate Burnett's efforts on the new record.

"He did a magnificent job finding the right songs and sculpting the perfect arrangements for Plant and Krauss to perform," Metzger writes. Included among the tracks is Sam Philips's "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," which, he says, "is delivered as a moody hallucination that comes in the wake of crushing heartache."

Sam's own version of the song will appear on her follow-up to A Boot and a Shoe called Don't Do Anything, due out early next year on Nonesuch. Burnett's own record is also slated for release sometime next spring.

To read the full Music Box review of Raising Sand, visit musicbox-online.com.

Glenn Kotche to Open for Andrew Bird in NYC

Just announced: Glenn Kotche will be opening for Andrew Bird, left, at New York's Beacon Theatre on Friday, November 30. Tickets are now available through Ticketmaster.

Glenn will be performing the world premiere of his Anomaly with Kronos Quartet at the San Francisco Jazz Festival this Thursday, October 25. Read what Glenn has to say about the new piece in a post from last week.

David Byrne Shares Stage with "Gyrating Geriatrics"

Earlier this month, David Byrne joined Young @ Heart Chorus, a group of "gyrating geriatrics" (according to Time magazine and the choir's own website), at their gig in New York City's Paris Bar. According to picthforkmedia.com, Byrne, by far the youngest person on stage (chorus members range in age from 72 to 88), joined in on the Talking Heads's "Heaven" and a new Byrne-penned tune, "One Fine Day."

David reports on his own blog that "the hipsters at the Paris Bar were completely won over, I think."

You can see more photos of the event by Mark Tusk like this one at Pitchfork:

All Songs Considered: David Byrne's "Knee Plays" A Thrill to Hear Again

In the October 18 episode of NPR's All Songs Considered, host Bob Boilen opens the show by recalling the first time he heard David Byrne's Knee Plays on cassette, back in 1985. He remembers driving around in his car listening to it—"I played it constantly"—until giving it away as a thank-you gift. He's been waiting 20-plus years for the CD release to replace the missing cassette, and, he says, "It's such a thrill to hear it again."

Learn more about the Knee Plays, from its earliest days as a collaboration with theater director Robert Wilson to the new CD version, at kneeplays.com.

Listen to the entire episode of All Songs Considered at npr.org.

Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone in "Mahagonny" on PBS

Theatermania.com reports that the LA Opera production of Brecht/Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which starred Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone and ran through February 2007, will air December 17 as part of the Great Performances series on New York's PBS station Thirteen/WNET. It will be available on DVD the following day. The production was directed by John Doyle, who also helmed the recent Broadway revivals of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (starring LuPone) and Company.

For more on the Mahagonny broadcast on PBS, visit thirteen.org.

David Byrne Adds Grass Art to The Seed Project

David Byrne will be among 140 artists contributing to The Seed Project, in which participants create works of art starting with a humble bag of grass seeds, in an effort to promote sustainability. The resulting works will be on display in New York City for five weeks, opening Thursday, October 25, at the Winkleman Gallery. Green gossip blog ecorazzi.com recently spoke with the David Cohen, the man behind the project, about the power of art and artists to affect change: "Artists create the world," Cohen tells the site. "If we all felt empowered, there's no telling what we could do." Read the complete interview here.

To learn more about The Seed Project and how to get involved, visit the project's site.

It Takes Two: Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin Together Again

The unbeatable pairing of Broadway heavy hitters Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin—both Tony winners for their roles in the original Broadway production of Evita—is back for one week at Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, October 23–29, in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. The show, choreographed by fellow Broadway legend Ann Reinking, will include songs by Stephen Sondheim and Richard Rodgers among many others.

LuPone garnered a Tony nomination for last year's Broadway production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and starred this past summer in Gypsy at New York City Center. Patinkin, a fixture on the small screen in the CBS drama Criminal Minds, originated the title role in Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George in 1984 and recorded Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim for Nonesuch in 2002. He is currently at work on a new project for the label.

For more information on An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, visit princemusictheater.org.

2008 American Songbook Series to Feature k.d. lang, Punch Brothers

Lincoln Center has announced the 2008 season of its popular American Songbook series, with tickets on sale to the public Thursday, October 25. Highlights of the season include three nights with k.d. lang, February 26–28, and an evening with Punch Brothers on February 20. Also featured are two shows on January 26 with Broadway star Kelli O'Hara, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance in Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza .

For more information on these events and the complete American Songbook series, visit lincolncenter.org.

ABT Unveils Dance Based on Philip Glass's "Portrait of Chuck Close"

On Saturday, October 27, at New York City Center, American Ballet Theatre will give the world premiere of C. to C. (Close to Chuck), created by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo. The new piece was inspired by Philip Glass's A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close, which the composer wrote for pianist Bruce Levingston in 2005. As the New York Sun reports, Glass, so often a subject of portraits by Close, met the painter in the 1960s when they were both a part of a fledgling artistic movement "hell-bent," in Close's words, "to purge our work of every other artist—to try to find something personal and idiosyncratic, not tradition-bound." Close goes on to lavish high praise on Glass, calling him "the most inventive and innovative composer of my adult life." For the painter, the addition of Elo's choreography reminds him of those earlier collaborative days: "To get a good choreographer and composer and visual artist together," he tells the Sun, "it's like old home week!"

For information on tickets to C. to C. (Close to Chuck), running through November 4, visit abt.org.

To read the complete New York Sun article on the creation of the piece, go to nysun.com.

Clint Mansell's "Fountain" Score Wins World Soundtrack Awards

On October 20, at the seventh annual World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium, composer Clint Mansell picked up two awards for his score to The Fountain, performed by Kronos Quartet and Mogwai. Mansell, pictured, received both the award for the year's Best Original Soundtrack and the Public Choice Award. For more information on the awards and for more photos from the ceremony, visit the Film Festival Ghent's website.

 

Devendra Banhart Enjoys Honest Input from Caetano Veloso

In a sprawling interview with pitchforkmedia.com, folk rocker Devendra Banhart talks about everything from colonial American history to making his new record using an authentic Nicolai Tesla–made microphone. Banhart, who appeared earlier this year at a David Byrne–curated concert at Carnegie Hall, also recalls what he says is the "best review" he's ever gotten; it was from Caetano Veloso:

The best thing I've ever heard about my music, ever. We played a show in Brazil. It was a festival, and we went on at three in the morning. We're playing, and first off I was a little nervous that Caetano [Veloso] might be there, but between two and three there's no way he's there. We're done paying at 4:30, the sun is slowly starting to rise. It's dawn. And who comes running backstage ... ? Caetano Veloso. He comes up and goes, "Guys, that was awful! I loved it!!" Best thing I ever heard. It was insane. It was honest.

Read the complete interview at pitchforkmedia.com.

Youssou N'Dour Reacts to Death of South African Reggae Singer Lucky Dube

Canada's CBC News reports that South African police have arrested five men linked to the shooting death last Thursday of reggae star Lucky Dube. Late last week, Youssou N'Dour urged South African leaders to use Dube's death as a wake-up call to address that nation's high incidence of violent crime.

The Guardian on Philip Glass: "His Achievement Is Massive"

In the October 19 issue of The Guardian, the London newspaper ran the following editorial honoring Philip Glass on the occasion of his 70th birthday celebration, Glassworks, at London's Barbican Centre. The events included a rare performance—the first in London since 1985—of Glass's entire Music in 12 Parts by the Philip Glass Ensemble:

Few composers of our time have dismantled the barriers between the music of the people and the music of the elite more consistently and creatively than Philip Glass. So it is appropriate that this weekend's celebration of Mr Glass's 70th birthday at London's Barbican Centre should feature not just Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen—two of the many performers from other traditions with whom he has worked through the years—but the remarkable (and, at three-and-a-half hours, remarkably long) Music in 12 Parts, which the composer created for his own ensemble in the early 1970s. There continues to be a lively debate about whether Mr Glass's determination to rid his music of the trappings of the conservatoire and the past has been a new path or a blind alley for modern art music. But the fact that the debate still rages is proof that the question matters. If the critics have often turned up their noses at Mr Glass's abandonment of development and harmony (as well as disharmony) the public—instinctively sensing that he, like them, was for ever changed by Chuck Berry—has generally embraced his focus on rhythm, repetition, volume and duration. The London stage premiere of Mr Glass's 1980 opera about Gandhi, Satyagraha, was one of the great musical events of 2007. Let us hope Mr Glass's latest opera, Appomattox, about the end of the American civil war, which premiered in San Francisco this month, reaches our stages more quickly. Mr Glass's music may be minimalist, but his achievement is massive.

The editorial can also be read on The Guardian's website, guardian.co.uk.

Christgau on N'Dour: "Best Band in the World"

In the October 12 episode of NPR's All Songs Considered, Robert Christgau, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, calls Youssou N'Dour and Super Étoile "the best band in the world." Before closing the episode with the song "4-4-44" from Youssou's new record, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), Christgau urges listeners to catch one of the live shows on Youssou's upcoming US tour: "It's very simple," he says, "If you're within 150 miles, don't miss them."

The entire All Songs Considered episode is available online at npr.org.

To see when Youssou will be playing within 150 miles of where you are, check out the complete list of US tour dates here.

Audra McDonald's "Private Practice" Picked Up for Full Season

Playbill.com reports that ABC's Private Practice, the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off starring Audra McDonald, has been picked up for a full season. The show, which airs Wednesday nights at 9 PM EST, will add nine new episodes for a total of 22 shows this season.

On Audra was among the performers last night at a gala benefit for the Motion Picture & Television Fund hosted by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman. The MPTF offers retirement care and social services for people in the entertainment industry.