journal.nonesuch.com

NZ Herald: k.d. lang's "Pitch-Perfect" Performance Leaves Auckland "Enraptured"

"There is a paucity of quality female vocalists in the music charts today," writes the New Zealand Herald's Alexander Bell in his review of k.d. lang's performance last night at Auckland's Aotea Centre. While there is certainly no lack of pop starlets, he says, for quality, "one woman stands alone." That would be k.d., who "enraptured the audience with her remarkable vocal range."

Bell says k.d.'s live performance of tunes from Watershed was "pitch-perfect and soulful" and her take on Jane Siberry's "The Valley," from Hymns of the 49th Parallel, "nothing short of magnificent, as the vocal swung from powerful to delicate."

It was the last concert on the Southern Hemispheric leg of her Watershed tour, with k.d. taking a few weeks before heading back to Canada towards the end of the month, and the Herald sums it up this way: "In one word ... genius."

To read the review, visit nzherald.co.nz.

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k.d. lang Featured on NPR's "World Cafe," Brings Tour to New Zealand

After spending a number of weeks traveling across Australia with her Watershed tour, k.d. lang and her band have made their way across the Tasman Sea for a performance in Wellington, New Zealand, tonight at the Michael Fowler Centre, and a stop in Auckland tomorrow night at the ASB Theatre in the Aotea Centre.

k.d. spoke with the New Zealand Herald's Russell Baillie about the new album and her tour of the Southern Hemisphere, including a few unexpected headlines she made while, as the Herald puts it, she took Australia by storm. Read the interview at nzherald.co.nz.

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NPR's World Cafe has broadcast an interview with k.d. and host David Dye that includes performances of "I Dream of Spring," "Coming Home," "Thread," and "Close Your Eyes" from the US leg of the tour, recorded in Seattle earlier this year. "Offered up with confidence and honesty," says NPR, "k.d. lang's deeply personal narratives invite listeners into an intimate world. Her glorious voice fuses country, jazz, and even Brazilian rhythms, and on her latest CD, Watershed, she finds a certain earthy elegance." Listen to k.d. on World Cafe now at npr.org.

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Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Below are just some of the many events going on across the globe this weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

The San Francisco Ballet will perform to John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony (2007) each night this weekend in Mark Morris's new piece, Joyride, for the final nights of the Ballet's New Works Festival Program B, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. "If you appreciate ballet that offers dazzlingly sophisticated musicality," says the San Francisco Chronicle, "then you could hardly do better than Mark Morris's Joyride." Tickets: sfballet.org.

The Thüringer Symphoniker, led by Oliver Weder, will pair Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Tromba Lontana for performances in Unterwellenborn, Germany, tonight and Saturday. Both pieces appear on the 1987 Nonesuch recording, The Chairman Dances. More info: boosey.com.

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Laurie Anderson continues her four-night residency at the Barbican in London through Saturday. Folks in the UK can catch Laurie on Later with Jools Holland tonight at 11:35 PM GMT, on BBC Two.

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Toumani Diabate will play a special concert in the intimate space of LSO St. Luke's in London, performing songs from his new solo CD, The Mande Variations, as part of the Barbican's Spring 08 Contemporary Events series.

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Bill Frisell's new quintet, featuring Chris Cheek on sax and clarinet, Larry Grenadier on bass, Ron Miles on cornet, and Rudy Royston on drums, will make its European debut on Sunday in Cheltenham, England's Everyman Theater as part of the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Tickets: cheltenhamfestivals.com.

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Kronos Quartet plays its last US date of the season this Saturday before heading to Europe for the rest of May. The group will perform at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, with special guest Tanya Tagaq, for the LA premiere of their collaboration Nunavut and the world premiere of Derek Charke's Tundra Songs. (The Canadian Press has a profile of Tagaq, a throat singer from Arctic Canada, and Charke, a Nova Scotian composer, at canadianpress.google.com.) Kronos will also give the LA premiere of Tusen Tankar, the Nonesuch Store-exclusive bonus track on its latest release, The Cusp of Magic, and perform Sigur Rós's Flugufrelsarinn. Tickets: laphil.com.

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After making her way across Australia, k.d. lang returns to the Sydney State Theatre with her Watershed tour tonight and for a just-added second show, on Saturday, before heading to New Zealand next week.

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The Brad Mehldau Trio will perform two sets tonight at Western Michigan University's Williams Theater in Kalamazoo as part of the Gilmore Keyboard Festival's Jazz Club series. Tickets: thegilmoreiscoming.com.

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Friends of the Sheldon in St. Louis, Missouri, present Randy Newman at that city's Sheldon Concert Hall Sunday night for a concert to benefit the Hall's education programs, both in schools and at the venue. Tickets: thesheldon.org.

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Nicholas Payton, fresh off his performance at the New Orleans JazzFest last weekend, headlines the Main Street JazzFest in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the festival's Main Stage Saturday at 7:30 PM. "Opportunities to see a jazz artist of Payton's caliber in the Middle Tennessee area are few and far between," says the Nashville Scene. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule of events: mainstreetjazzfest.com.

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Punch Brothers' Chris Thile will play a late-night solo set at the Living Room on New York's Lower East Side at 11 PM Sunday night. Tickets: livingroomny.com.

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Steve Reich's 1994 piece for two marimbas, Nagoya Marimbas, will be performed tonight at the Royal Northern College of Music's Haden Freeman Concert Hall in Manchester, England, by the RNCM Percussion Ensemble's Ian Wright and Paul Patrick. On Satudray, the full, 46-minute version of the composer's Desert Music (1983), for amplified voices and orchestra, will be performed at Fairfield University's Quick Center in Connecticut, by New York's Shen Wei Dance Arts ensemble.

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Wilco will be in Winnipeg, Manitoba, tonight to play the Burton Cummings Theatre (named "one of Winnipeg's Seven Wonders" in a recent Winnipeg Free Press reader survey) and will head back south of the 49th parallel for a sold-out show at the Emerson Cultural Center in Bozeman, Montana, Sunday night.

Brisbane Courier Mail: k.d. lang "In Sensational Form" on Australian Tour

"You can quickly run out of adjectives to describe k.d. lang," writes the Adelaide Advertiser's Lesley High, "powerful, soulful, sensual, lush, velvet, joyous---and that's just her voice." In a four-star review of k.d.'s show at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre last Saturday, High says, "Quite frankly, Ms. lang could sing the classifieds section and it would sound beautiful." To read the review, visit news.com.au/adelaidenow.

All the better, on her worldwide tour in support of her new album, Watershed, k.d.'s singing a good deal beyond the classifieds. The Courier Mail's Noel Mengel, in his review of the first of k.d.'s two shows last night at the Brisbane QPAC Concert Hall, calls Watershed "her best album of original material in years." He says k.d. "was in sensational form" and that her "command of songs about love's joys and bruises remains as convincing as ever." You'll find that review at news.com.au/couriermail.

Reviewing the show in the Sunshine Coast Daily, also out of Brisbane, Lisa Kither, reports that "the woman whose voice often brings goosebumps" didn't disappoint this time around. "Backed by an incredible five-piece band," Kither writes, "k.d. lang knows how to deliver a brilliant concert." The full review is at thedaily.com.au.

k.d. and her band continue their Australian tour tonight with a second show at the QPAC Concert Hall in Brisbane before returning to Sydney to play the State Theatre on Friday and a just-added second show on Saturday.

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Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Below is information on just some of the many events going on this weekend across the globe featuring Nonesuch artists. Enjoy!

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Violinist Leila Josefowicz will join the Saint Louis Symphony, led by conductor Marin Alsop, for three performances of John Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur this weekend at Powell Hall in St. Louis. Also tonight, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra led by Raymond Leppard will perform Adams's Violin Concerto at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, Spain, featuring violinist Chlöe Hanslip, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI led by Trevor Pinnock will perform the composer's 1990 orchestration of Liszt's The Black Gondola, in Turin, Italy.

Saturday night, the San Francisco Ballet presents the Mark Morris Dance Group's Joyride, featuring Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, as part of the continuing New Works Festival.

Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine gets three playings this weekend: Saturday night at the Saenger Theater in Mobile, Alabama, by Scott Speck and the Mobile Symphony, and Bloomington High School in Bloomington, Indiana, by Jose Valencia and the Musical Arts Youth Orchestra; and Sunday night at Royal Albert Hall, London, by Mark Gooding and the Harrow Young Musicians Philharmonic.

More information: boosey.com.

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Kronos Quartet plays the last of three performances at the Mondavi Center at the University of California, Davis, tonight: John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Tickets: mondaviarts.org.

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Laurie Anderson will bring Homeland to the Moscow International Performing Arts Center in Russia on Saturday. On Sunday night, Laurie will join the weekend-long Symposium on Sound, a gathering of scientists, performers, and artists, at Leiden University in the Netherlands, for a discussion of the event's theme of mutual influence between art and science, especially as it relates to sound. Info: veenfabriek.nl.

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T Bone Burnett continues his tour with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at New Orleans' famed Jazz & Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest. The three are scheduled to take the Acura Stage this afternoon at 3:30 PM. Next, they'll head to Birmingham, Alabama, where they'll play the BJCC Arena Saturday night. Tickets: nojazzfest.com (4/25); bjcc.org (4/26).

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Bill Frisell closes out his two week residency at New York's Village Vanguard with performances all weekend. Playing with Bill are Chris Cheek on sax, Ron Miles on trumpet, Tony Scherr on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums. Tickets: villagevanguard.com.

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Satyagraha, Philip Glass's 1980 opera centered around Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa, continues tonight at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The performance is sold out. More information: metoperafamily.org.

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Richard Goode will perform a free concert in New York City as part of the annual Free for All at Town Hall concert series. See the post in today's Nonesuch Journal for more information.

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Emmylou Harris takes the stage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in downtown Nashville tonight for Premiere Evening, an annual fund-raising event to benefit the Center's educational and cultural programming. Tickets: tpac.org.

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k.d. lang's continues the Australian leg of her Watershed tour at the Entertainment Center in Adelaide Saturday night. Tickets: theaec.net.

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Brad Mehldau is in Quebec, Canada, tonight for a solo show at the Palais Montcalm. He returns to the States on Saturday for a performance with the trio with whom he recorded the new album Live at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, and a Sunday night show at the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Theater in Philadelphia. Tickets: palaismontcalm.ca (4/25); hop.dartmouth.edu (4/26); pennpresents.org (4/27).

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Youssou N'Dour will perform a special benefit concert tonight at New York's intimate venue Joe's Pub as part of a fund-raising effort for the Youssou N'Dour Foundation and his worldwide advocacy efforts. The acoustic set will be modeled on the smaller sets he leads at his club in Dakar. Tickets: joespub.com.

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Randy Newman will play a solo date tonight at the Riley Center at Mississippi State University's Meridian Campus. Tickets: msurileycenter.com.

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Nicholas Payton stays close to home for New Orleans' Jazz Fest. He and his quintet will take the stage in the WWOZ Jazz Tent at 4:05 PM on Sunday. Among the other performers at this year's festival are Stevie Wonder and Al Green, as well as Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T Bone Burnett (see above). Tickets: nojazzfest.com.

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Steve Reich's Eight Lines will be performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain led by Ludovic Morlot tonight at Cité de la musique, Salle des concerts, in Paris.

Reich's Desert Music, will presented at the University of California, Berkeley, Saturday, as Drumming will be performed by percussionist Colin Currie at the Concert Hall in Perth, Scotland. Currie earned four stars in the Herald (UK) for his performance there earlier this week of Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood that "mesmerised." Also Saturday, the Smith Quartet brings the Triple Quartet to the Jacqueline du Pre Music Building in Oxford, England.

On Sunday, Reich's Cello Counterpoint will be performed at the Purcell Room in London by Endymion and his Vermont Counterpoint can be heard at Ford Hall at Ithaca College, with Melissa Wertheimer on flute.

More information: boosey.com

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The national tour of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, based on the 2005 Broadway production helmed by John Doyle, began its run at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre early this week. Performances continue there through May 4. Tickets: sweeneytoddtour.com

k.d. lang Offers Support for Tibet As Olympic Torch Reaches Australia

As the Olympic torch makes its way to Australia's capital city of Canberra in preparation for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, k.d. lang has offered her support to the people of Tibet. In an open letter published today in The Age newspaper out of Melbourne, where she is in the midst of a three-day residency at Hamer Hall, k.d. writes: "It is unfortunate the Olympic Games are being impacted by this situation, but it presents a rare opportunity to bring focus to the heart-breaking situation of the Tibetan and Chinese people who have suffered serious human rights abuses. Oppression should be stopped."

In her letter, she includes specific suggestions for opening the dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government and concludes:

The Tibetan culture is part of our global heritage. Its original personality and purity needs to be kept intact. I urge the world community to focus their efforts to protect the Tibetan culture, so that it can continue to be a source of inspiration for the rest of the world.

To read the full text, visit theage.com.au.

After "Magnificent" k.d. lang Performance, Perth Paper Hails "Long Live the Queen"

k.d. lang continues her Australian Watershed tour with three shows in Melbourne this week. She was in Western Australia this past weekend for an outdoor concert at Perth's Pioneer Women's Memorial in Kings Park on Saturday. Perth Now's Polly Coufos said the despite the autumnal chill, there was a warm reception all around at this "magnificent" set. Hails Coufos: "Long live the queen."

"Ms Lang is charm personified," writes the reviewer, who continues:

When she soared through the chorus of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" [from k.d.'s Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel] it was like you were hearing the song for the very first time. That's saying something when it's a song you've known like the back of your hand for more than 20 years. The goosebumps may have been caused by the rapidly falling temperature but I don't think so.

Coufos reports that, with a set "heavy with tracks from her latest album, Watershed ... there wasn't one song that didn't fire and not a moment where the energy lagged."

To read the concert review, visit news.com.au/perthnow.

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Sydney Morning Herald: k.d. lang's "Delightful" Performance Showcases "Flawless" Vocals

"Delightful, and close to flawless." That's how the Sydney Morning Herald's Kelsey Munro describes k.d. lang's performance this past Wednesday at Sydney's State Theatre. The Australian's Lynden Barber concurs, writing: "In concert, k.d. lang comes so close to perfection that it's hard not to dissolve into gushing cliches." Once k.d. starts to sing, says Barber, "the effect is startling, no matter how prepared you think you are."

This week, as k.d.'s new album, Watershed, reached No. 1 in Australia, she and her band have been touring the country. The Australian calls the songs on the new album "gorgeously lush" and saw "a delirious climax" of Wednesday's show come when k.d. sang two songs off of her Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel. "Lang's tribute to fellow Canadian Jane Siberry," writes Barber, "appeared impossible to top until she took hold of Leonard Cohen's hymn-like 'Hallelujah' ..."

The Sydney Morning Herald has kinds words for k.d.'s band, whom Munro calls "a revelation, a perfect combination of restraint and tenderness, able to deliver choir-boy harmonies on call," and has highest praise for her voice:

It has the clarity of a bell, a purity of tone that has to be heard to be believed. But her singing is not showy, not in the overwrought vocal gymnastics sense that lesser singers favour. Her vocal control---both pitch and volume---is flawless and looks effortless, her phrasing is always inventive. There is a Patsy Cline-like languid glide to it that carries a hint of [lang's] country beginnings, but there is also much of the classic crooner.

To read the complete review, visit smh.com.au; for the review in The Australian, visit theaustralian.news.com.au.

k.d. and the band play one more night at the State Theatre tonight before heading west to play Perth on Saturday, then down to Melbourne for three nights at Hamer Hall. For more tour information, click here.

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USA Today: k.d. lang's "Elegantly" Sung "Watershed" Tune Makes Playlist

k.d. lang's "Shadow and the Frame," off her recent Nonesuch release Watershed, joins an eclectic mix of song selects on USA Today music critic Edna Gundersen's Playlist this week, which also includes the likes of the Rolling Stones and Ray Davies. Gundersen says k.d. sings "elegantly, painfully" on the track, with its "spare and exquisite string arrangement." To read the Playlist, visit blogs.usatoday.com.

You can listen to "Shadow and the Frame" on this video clip, the first of six webisodes launched in January and all available at nonesuch.com/watershed:

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang to Receive Honorary Degree from University of Alberta

k.d. lang will receive an honorary degree from the University of Alberta at the school's convocation ceremonies this spring, reports the Edmonton Sun, joining the Queen's vice-regal representative, Governor General Michaelle Jean, and other luminaries in receiving the honor. Edmonton, the site of the University, is also k.d.'s place of birth, though she grew up in Consort, Alberta, 300 kilometers southeast.

The ceremony will take place on June 11, just days after k.d. and her band perform at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton and the Epcor Centre in Calgary.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang's Latest Leaps to No. 1 in Australia

Congratulations to k.d. lang, whose latest Nonesuch release, Watershed, has jumped to No. 1 on the Australian charts! She and her band are there now for an Aussie tour that takes them to Canberra tonight for a performance at the Royal Theatre and on to Sydney tomorrow for two nights at the State Theatre before heading west to Perth.

Late last week, k.d. made news Down Under by speaking out strongly in support of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s stance against China’s crackdown on protesters in Tibet. In response to a recent discussion between the Prime Minister and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, k.d., a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, told an Australian radio interviewer: "Your most amazing prime minister has been very fearless in his answers and very, very graceful. I'm very, very proud of Kevin Rudd for being so focused and clear on his answers and his approach to it.”

For more of k.d.'s perspective on this issue, you can read the transcript of the interview and listen to the archived program at abc.net.au.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang Concert to Air on Canadian TV Tomorrow Night

The Bravo! Canada network's award-winning series Live at the Rehearsal Hall will feature k.d. lang and her band in concert performing songs from Watershed and favorites from throughout her career. The show will debut tomorrow night, April 1. Past episodes of the series have featured a broad array of artists, including Beck, Feist, Rufus Wainwright, and Philip Glass. For more information, visit bravo.ca.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang to Perform on the "Tonight Show" Tonight

The US leg of k.d. lang's Watershed tour ended earlier this week with two shows at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, but today offers two chances to catch k.d. on TV here.

Tune in to Live with Regis & Kelly this morning for an encore broadcast of k.d.'s recent performance on the show. And tonight, k.d. and the band will perform live on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno; the show begins at 11:35 PM ET.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

The Oregonian: k.d. lang Performance "Simply Outstanding"

This past weekend, k.d. lang's Watershed tour arrived in Portland, Oregon, for two sold-out performances at the Aladdin Theater, which the Oregonian sums up in one word: "wow." The paper's pop-music critic, Luciana Lopez elabortes:

Her voice is simply amazing, controlled and powerful and rich, without seeming labored or strained. She brought the audience to its feet repeatedly, and while I usually rail at unnecessary and undeserved standing ovations, I cannot begrudge her a single moment of her copious applause on Sunday. She was simply outstanding.

To read the full review, visit oregonlive.com.

k.d. will head down to California for two performances at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts this Tuesday and Wednesday before making her way back home to Los Angeles. While in LA, she'll perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; tune in to NBC this Friday night to catch the show.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: k.d. lang Finds "Secret Chord" That Pleased the Crowd

This week, k.d. lang brought her Watershed tour to the West Coast, starting with two sold-out performances at Seattle's Moore Theatre on Wednesday and Thursday. Reviewing the first show for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, writer Mikel Toombs reports:

In "Hallelujah," his classic if increasingly overexposed song, Leonard Cohen wrote about "the secret chord." That's just what fellow Canadian k.d. lang seems to have found, a mere 24 years after releasing her first album. Watershed, her aptly named new CD, finds lang achieving an effortless-sounding blend of the personal and the artistic, while adding Brazilian accents to her resolute torch and twang.

Cohen's "Hallelujah," which k.d. recorded on her Nonesuch debut, 2004's Hymns of the 49th Parallel, remains a show-stopper in her live set. Toombs returns to it when he concludes: "With a subtle nod to saloon singer Frank Sinatra, she sold her songs, none more so than 'Hallelujah.' Despite the hail of recent interpretations, lang made 'Hallelujah' her own, earning a standing ovation."

To read the concert review, visit seattlepi.nwsource.com.

The tour continues this weekend with two more sold-out performances, this time at Portland's Aladdin theater. For more tour information, click here.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang Closes East Coast Leg of Tour "Just Right"

Now on her way to the West Coast for tour dates this week in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, k.d. lang recently played the last shows on the East Coast leg of her Watershed tour with stops in Connecticut and upstate New York.

Following last Thursday's show in Schenectady, New York, the Daily Gazette reports that k.d.'s "voice had all its sass, strength and spice." Writes reviewer Michael Hochanadel:

Lang's voice was a wonder all night, bolstered by precise microphone technique, unerring musical and emotional pitch, and dictionary-pure diction. She's such a powerful instrument that her band could have disappeared altogether, except that they perfectly fit her songs and voice. It was omni-pop, with a prairie provinces accent, and it was just right.

To read the full review, visit dailygazette.com.

The Albany Times Union's Greg Haymes expresses a similar sentiment in his review of Thursday's show, calling k.d. "simply the best singer on the planet." Haymes reports:

She sang all but one of the songs from Watershed, and she sang them gloriously ... Through it all, the one constant was her incredible voice ... And it wasn't really all about the power of her voice, either, but rather the extended moods that she was able to create and the unbelievable grace and effortlessness with which she sang.

That review can be found at timesunion.com.

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The Buffalo News's pop music critic Jeff Miers found Saturday's show at the University of Buffalo to be similarly successful. He writes:

In terms of sheer virtuosity, few could compete with lang, whose instrument is a rich, versatile one capable of holding notes in perfect tune, seemingly for as long as lang feels like holding them, and boasting complete mastery of falsetto, elegant vibrato and, to top it off, one of a kind microphone technique ... What an outstanding sense of control over a song's unfolding lang has. It's simply masterful, and humbling to behold.

In Miers' estimation, k.d. has "never made a less than excellent album, and the new Watershed is quite possibly Ingénue's equal," he exclaims, referring to her breakthrough 1992 album.

"Lang makes singing seem like a noble endeavor," Miers concludes, "one that actually brings something positive into the world, at least for a while."

To read the review, visit buffalonews.com.

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The Hartford Courant reports that the trademark "purity of her voice" and "relaxed delivery" were on full display at Sunday's show at the Palace Theater in Waterbury as well, in "a performance that flowed with gravity and passion without taking itself too seriously." That review can be found at courant.com.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

Seattle Times: k.d. lang's Latest Is "Incredibly Lovely"

The tour continues for k.d. lang and her band in support of her new album, Watershed, with two stops on the East Coast this weekend in Buffalo, New York, and Waterbury, Connecticut, before heading west for two nights at Seattle's Moore Theatre beginning on Wednesday.

The Seattle Times's Joanna Horowitz previews the shows with a review of the new album, which she says "feels both reverent and fresh." A culmination of the many styles of music k.d. has incorporated into her repertoire over the years, Watershed also features, of course, k.d.'s famous voice, here "delicately restrained, smoky and intimate," writes Horowitz. "The result is faintly nostalgic, incredibly lovely and seemingly effortless." To read the complete article, visit seattletimes.com.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer weighs in as well, with the paper's pop music critic, Gene Stout, calling Watershed "a dreamy, laid-back exploration of romance and passion."

For more tour information, click here.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

k.d. lang Casts a Spell on Charleston; Contributes to BBC Documentary on Women in the Arts

Tonight, at Wilmington, Delaware's Grand Opera House, k.d. lang continues her tour across the United States performing songs from her latest album, Watershed, and throughout her career. After her performance in Charleston, West Virginia, this past weekend, reviewer Rick Justice, writing for the city's Daily Mail, reports that k.d. lang, "with a voice as pure as drewdrop," cast a "magical spell on the packed house" at Charleston's Clay Center. "Of course," Justice continues, "the crowd went crazy over lang. She is so charismatic that you just couldn't help yourself." To read the concert review, visit dailymail.com.

And k.d. lang returns to the UK airwaves this week. First up, k.d. contributes to I Am Woman, a documentary exploring the role of the women's movement (as expressed in Helen Reddy's famous standard-bearing song) in the music business. The show airs tonight at 10:30 PM GMT on BBC Radio 2; listeners around the world can tune in to the live stream at bbc.co.uk/radio2.

This Friday night on British TV, BBC Two will air an encore broadcast of k.d.'s performance on BBC Four Sessions, which first ran last month. The program begins at 11:40 PM GMT. For more information on the UK broadcast, visit bbc.co.uk/bbctwo.

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Click here to add the Watershed limited-edition, deluxe CD plus free album MP3s directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $20. Visit the Nonesuch Store for more options.

Billboard: k.d. lang Displays Her "Astonishing Voice" on Tour

After having performed three concerts in Florida this week showcasing songs from her latest album, Watershed, k.d. lang is on her way to North Carolina to play at UNC's Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill tomorrow night, and reviews are still coming in from last week's three-night residency at New York's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

Billboard magazine's Jessica Letkemann says that last Wednesday's set successfully spotlighted k.d.'s "fluent and, at times, astonishing voice." All the while, it was apparent how much k.d. was enjoying herself. "It's rare," writes Letkemann, "to see an artist who seemed to genuinely have fun as much as lang was."

The reviewer found the highlight of the evening to be k.d.'s "spirited, soaring version" of fellow Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," which she recorded for her 2004 Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel. As Letkemann reports, "lang wove the interlocking, mesmerizing notes into each other, each building to the song's undeniably spiritual climax."

In the end, notes the Billboard review, "the Canadian with a big voice reminded a small roomful of New Yorkers what a pleasure it can be to hear someone really sing."

To read the full review, visit billboard.com.

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Soon afterward, k.d. was in West Palm Beach, playing at the Kravis Center. Palm Beach Post staff writer Leslie Gray Streeter writes:

The key to lang's appeal both on records and in person is that great, effortless voice, a warm instrument that can start a song soft and delicate and then crescendo into an impassioned but always elegantly controlled roar.

To read Streeter's review, visit palmbeachpost.com.

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At her Tampa Bay performance, reports Creative Loafing's local music blog, k.d. repeatedly proved to the "ecstatic" crowd at Ruth Eckerd Hall,

she can go from soaring to intimate to down-home friendly all in the space of an evening---or sometimes even within one song. Her voice is better than ever. It's richer and darker now, yet she can still hit and sustain high notes as pure and lovely as a mountain stream.

Reviewer David Warner writes that even at the end of her 90-minute set, k.d. "left you longing for more of that addictive voice."

To read the review, visit blogs.creativeloafing.com.

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k.d. lang Shares the Rewards of Travel

k.d. lang knows a thing or two about travel. She's been making her way around the world touring in support of her new album, Watershed, which brings her to Clearwater, Florida, tonight, and will have taken her from Glasgow, Scotland, through Sydney, Australia, to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in her native Canada, before winding down this summer.

The spring issue of Out Traveler magazine features an interview with the well-traveled songstress, in which she shares a few travel secrets (keep it down to just one bag) and favorite spots from around the world, as well as the impact  her travels have had on her music-making. A she tells Out Traveler's Randy B. Hecht:

I love to hear the soundtrack that that particular location or environment conjures. We were in Tahiti about a year ago, and we went to this little island ... there was a little French restaurant there playing café music, and it was very bass- and drum- heavy. It really inspired me, and it was while I was writing my record and working on my record. Things like that always happen.

To read the complete interview for more insights, visit outtraveler.com.

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NY Times: k.d. lang Brings One of the World's Most Beautiful Voices to Tour

Last night, k.d. lang played the final performance of her three-night residency at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. The New York Times' Stephen Holden, in his review of Wednesday's show, posits that the Canadian singer's inclusion in an American-themed series may stem from the reputation she earned through her collaboration with Tony Bennett as "one of the two or three great under-50 interpreters of American popular standards."

On the current tour, k.d. is focusing primarily on the work of Canadian songwriters, most notably the songs she created for her new album, Watershed. Holden writes that the Wednesday night set "conjured big-sky country where romantic dreamers infused the wide-open spaces with swooning desire" and says of k.d. that she is "possessed of one of the world's most beautiful and steady pop voices."

Holden refers back to the title of k.d.'s 1989 album, Absolute Torch and Twang, for the most apt description of this inimitable performer:

The torch part comes from the dreamy side of Peggy Lee, a North Dakota farm girl whose ’60s ballad style remains the ne plus ultra of a dreamy passivity. The twang comes from another Lang idol, the country singer Patsy Cline, in whom true grit battled heartbreak and won by a hair. In Watershed the two aspects are boldly overlaid.

To read the review, visit nytimes.com.

Up next on the tour are three stops in Florida, beginning with a concert at the Kravis Center for the Arts in West Palm Beach tomorrow night. For more tour information, click here.

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Newsday: k.d. lang Delivers "Something Special" in New York Shows

k.d. lang continues her Watershed tour tonight with the last of three nights at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

Newsday's Glenn Gamboa's review of k.d.'s series opener on Tuesday begins this way:

When k.d. lang closes her eyes and points her head to the heavens, it's a sure sign that something special is soon to follow. Her voice, her phrasing, her performance techniques all add up to a gorgeous delivery that enhances whatever song she chooses.

In addition, Gamboa credits "the strength of her new album" with keeping the proceedings at such a high level. It's the power of the songs, and, as ever, the quality of the voice:

For lang, it is never about the power of her singing, though she certainly has plenty. It's about evoking a mood and building a moment, which requires structure and control, not vocal curlicues and the fluttering melisma of singing 10 notes when one will do.

To read the review, visit newsday.com.

She and the band will make their way to Carleston, West Virginia, in a little over a week for a concert at the Clay Center, after stops in Florida and North Carolina. The Carleston Post and Courier's Devin Grant writes that with Watershed, k.d. "keeps things just as unpredictable as ever ... Indeed, listening to this CD is just like discovering a brand new artist." Grant concludes:

There is no denying that the music on Watershed was worth the eight-year wait ... In a world where much of today's music sounds alarmingly generic, lang should be commended for keeping things interesting.

To read the article, visit charleston.net. For more tour information, click here.

The album review in Enterainment Today credits k.d.'s first foray into self-production with further showcasing her voice, as well as the "powerful combination" of "the lushness of the orchestrations and the deft turns of phrase in the lyrics." Reviewer Brad Auerbach writes that the style k.d. first introduced with 1992's Ingénue is continued here "with aplomb." He cites the opening track, "I Dream of Spring," in particular for evoking "the mercurial mix of the spiritual and sexual mastered so well by the likes of Van Morrison and Al Green." Auerbach's review ends with kind words for Nonesuch for offering artists "unfettered freedom to pursue their muse" with "consistently gratifying" results. To read the review, visit entertainmenttoday.net.

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k.d. lang Kicks Off North American Tour with Class

The North American leg of k.d. lang's Watershed tour kicked off last week with an opening-night performance in her home country, at Toronto's cozy club The Courthouse. The Toronto Sun gives the concert four-and-a-half stars and reports: "You couldn't have asked for a more classy kickoff to a world tour." To read the review, visit torontosun.com.

The Toronto Globe and Mail's Robert Everett-Green writes that the set was "smooth and powerful," with k.d. seeming to be "in high spirits." Of the songs from Watershed, which make up a good part of the live show, he says:

The new songs refuse as a group to be assigned to any particular musical neighbourhood. The prevailing attitude is both/and, not either/or, and that suits her singing style, which has so many ways of exploring a line or a phrase.

For the complete review, visit theglobeandmail.com.

k.d. will be back in Toronto this spring for an extended Canadian tour after stops throughout the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

The first stop on the US leg of the tour was a sold-out Saturday-night show at Boston's Opera House. Boston Globe staff writer Joan Anderman says it was "an endlessly classy and surprisingly warm set." She points, in particular, to two album tracks, "I Dream of Spring," the album opener, and "Coming Home" as "marvelous amalgams" exemplary of k.d.'s ability to seamlessly blend any number of styles.

The Boston Herald's Christopher John Treacy's review of the show refers to Watershed as "a culmination of her myriad musical experiments" that finds k.d. "making the kind of musical choices that only come with time and experience." About her performance on Saturday, Treacy writes that she "triumphed from an uncanny balance of musical motifs: lang let her new material provide the glue for an otherwise cherry-picked assortment of career-spanning tunes."

Treacy also points to her "impassioned readings" of songs from the Canadian songbook by Jane Siberry and Leonard Cohen, which she recorded for her Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, as "downright transcendent."

To read the complete Herald review, visit bostonherald.com.

For his part, Boston Edge contributor Robert Israel says the songstress was "beaming with joy," with "no lack of love" bouncing back at her from the packed crowd. He writes:

Her musical range is extraordinary. Her phrasing is precise. She often has to hold the microphone away from her: when she unleashes her full power, no mike is needed, really, even in a hall as large as the Opera House ... Sheer delight in music, in her rapport with her fans, with the band that never overpowered but always complimented her, all conspired to make her concert a warm, witty and inspiring one.

The writer quotes one fan who shouted to k.d.: "You’ve got the best voice on the planet!" And he's not Israel is not likely to disagree, concluding: "That statement may not be far from the truth." To read his concert review, visit edgeboston.com.

From there, k.d. and her band made their way to Philadelphia Sunday night for what the Philadelphia Inquirer calls a "love-fest at the Kimmel Center." The Philadelphia Bulletin agrees, with the paper's Lewis Whittington k.d.'s voice "transcendent, proving that poetry and lyrics are alive in her music." Furthermore, he writes, for all the styles she has embraced over the years, she has never done so simply to follow the latest trend, rather, "she inhabits the genre she happens to be in because musically she has something to bring to it."

She's now made her way to New York City, where she'll appear today on WNYC, New York Public Radio, for an interview on the Leonard Lopate Show, at noon ET (streaming live on wnyc.org), and at the Allen Room at 8:30 PT for the first of three nights as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. For those of you who aren't able to make the show, you can tune in to New York's WFUV, 90.7 FM, all day, as the DJs will be focusing the spotlight on k.d. and Watershed, and at 9 PM, the station's music director, Rita Houston, will air her interview with k.d. on the program Words & Music from Studio A. Tune in at wfuv.org.

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The Phoenix on k.d. lang's "Luscious" Records

In the latest issue of the Boston Phoenix, writer Mikael Wood gives a nod to the great singer-songwriters of Canada beyond the current crop of "indie-rock elite" like Arcade Fire and Feist. Chief among them is k.d. lang, who is "known for the lusciousness of her records" and whom Wood calls "Canada's premier roots-music sensualist" and a master of myriad genres, "all of it swirling like flavors in a sundae." Watershed, k.d.'s latest album, is a culmination of those many musical styles, and what they all share, writes Wood, is k.d.'s "meticulously calibrated singing." To read the article, visit thephoenix.com. Fans in Boston can catch k.d. at the Opera House there this Saturday night.

The next night, she'll head down to Philadelphia for a performance at the Kimmel Center. There's an interview with k.d. in the Philadelphia City Paper leading up to the area show; writes the City Paper's A.D. Amorosi of k.d.:

She can sing the phone book as often as she wants with Tony Bennett. But lang's refined, longing lyrical refrains so suit her swooning croon, we needed the real stuff, the hard stuff. Not only did lang write the coy and languid Watershed, she's also the producer. Magical.

To read the interview, visit citypaper.net.

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k.d. lang to Perform on BBC Four "Sessions" Tonight; Preview Online Now

Ahead of tonight's broadcast of the k.d. lang BBC Four Session in the UK, featuring songs from her new album, Watershed, fans around the world can watch an interview and excerpts from the performance now at bbc.co.uk. The hourlong special comes from a performance k.d. gave with the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Robert Ziegler at the beautiful 18th-century church LSO St Luke's in London on February 3.

BBC Four will premiere the episode tonight at 10 PM GMT; an encore presentation of the show will be broadcast on BBC Two on March 14.

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Boston Globe: "Mellifluous Melodies" Fill lang's "Watershed"

With k.d. lang's new album, Watershed, available now, and her US tour just about to get under way, she's earning high marks from both sides of the Atlantic.

The French publication Telerama gives Watershed an excellent "four keys." Writing in French, reviewer François Gorin says k.d.'s latest album is one he could "recommend completely and without moderation." And while k.d. may open the album by singing that "this world is full of frozen lovers," Gorin concludes that, with Watershed, "she does a lot to warm them." To read the review, in French, visit telerama.fr.

The Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman says that "a warm, romantic glow radiates out of the languorous music" on the record. "The mellifluous melodies and tasteful instrumentation fall in line with ... Ingénue and Invincible Summer." But on Watershed, k.d. and her band "strip away the gloss and emphasize the more natural textures of acoustic guitar, hand percussion, and strings," while banjo and steel guitars "lend an earthiness to the proceedings." You can find the complete review at boston.com.