journal.nonesuch.com

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

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.

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 Short Ride in a Fast Machine receives two very different performances this weekend: first, tonight, at the Frauenthal Center, Muskegan, Michigan, by the West Shore Symphony Orchestra, led by Scott Speck. On Saturday night, the piece will be one of many Adams works included in the Hamburg Ballet's performance of choreographer John Neumeier's Parzifal: Episodes and Echo (pictured at right) at the Staatsoper in Hamburg. Also included are Tromba Lontana, Christian Zeal and Activity, The Wound-Dresser, El Dorado, and The Dharma at Big Sur. Tickets: hamburgballet.de.

The Black Gondola, the composer's orchestration of Liszt's La Lugubre Gondola, will receive two performances this weekend by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Trevor Pinnock, first at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam tonight, and then at de Vereeniging in Nijmegen, Netherlands, tomorrow. Tickets: concertgebouw.nl.

Also receiving two performances is Road Movies, which violinist Midori and pianist Charles Abramovic will play Saturday at Zeche Zollverein, in Essen, Germany, and on Sunday at Zehntscheuer in Rottenburg.
Also on Sunday, Adams's Chamber Symphony will be performed by the Tokyo Sinfonietta, led by Yasuaki Itakura, at Cité de la musique in Paris.

---

Laurie Anderson brings her Homeland tour to the sparkling KKL Luzern Concert Hall in Switzerland tonight (tickets: kkl-luzern.ch) and then to Modena, Italy, for a performance at the Teatro Communale on Sunday.

---

The European leg of the Raising Sand tour continues with T Bone Burnett joining Robert Plant and Alison Krauss in a sold-out concert at Philipshalle in Dusseldorf, Germany, Saturday night, and the Forest National Arena in Brussels on Sunday. Tonight, BBC Two will air the group's performance on Later ... with Jools Holland. You can watch a video preview of their set, the song "Killing the Blues," at bbc.co.uk/later. Also on Later tonight: Emmylou Harris, with a song from her forthcoming Nonesuch release, All I Intended to Be.

---

Kronos Quartet has begun its tour of Europe, heading to Leon, Spain, tonight, for a performance that includes John Adams's Fellow Traveler, written for Kronos in celebration of Peter Sellars's 50th birthday. The Quartet will then bring the piece to Bucharest, Romania, on Sunday for a performance at Sala Radio that also includes Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, which the group premiered in 1999 and recorded for Nonesuch in 2001.

---

The Blues Alley in Washington, DC, hosts Nicholas Payton tonight for the second night in a row; there will be an 8 PM and a 10 PM set. Tickets: bluesalley.com.

---

Dawn Upshaw celebrates Mother's Day at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Sunday with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in a program including the New York premiere of She Was Here, composer Osvaldo Golijov's arrangement of Schubert Lieder. (Tickets: carnegiehall.org.) Dawn spoke on WNYC's Soundcheck with host John Schaefer earlier this week on being dubbed "The Composers Muse," as she will be honored at a Meet the Composer benefit later this month.

---

The next stop on Laura Veirs's solo tour, with opener Liam Finn, is Denver, Colorado, tonight for a show at the Walnut Room presented by Radio 1190. (Tickets: thewalnutroom.com.) On Sunday, they'll head to Omaha, Nebraska, for a set at the Slowdown's Front Room. (Tickets: theslowdown.com.)

---

Wilco heads to the Southwest, with openers Retribution Gospel Choir (featuring Alan Sparhawk of Low), for a concert tonight at the University of New Mexico's Pope Joy Hall in Albuquerque (tickets: unmtickets.com), before heading to Austin, Texas, for two sold-out nights at Stubbs BBQ, beginning Sunday.

Laura Veirs Takes Tour to San Francisco

After playing for two different hometown crowds this past weekend, first in her former home of Seattle and then in Portland, her home of the past two years, Laura Veirs takes her solo show to San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill, with opener Liam Finn. SFist encourages the locals to tear themselves away from the ongoing San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs for another week, to catch this one-night-only event. The site features a Q&A with Laura you can find at sfist.com.

For further tour info, click here.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

Vancouver Courier: Laura Veirs Take "Wonderfully Melodic" Music of "Saltbreakers" on Tour

Laura Veirs kicks off her monthlong North American solo tour at Vancouver's St. James Hall tonight, with Liam Finn supporting throughout the tour.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a record from last year with better opening lines than those introducing Saltbreakers," writes the Vancouver Courier's Shawn Conner, who spoke with Laura about the album, her career, and the upcoming tour.

From those opening lines and through its 12 tracks, Saltbreakers, writes Conner, is

an album that, deservedly, has brought considerable acclaim to Veirs, and made a few top-ten lists for last year, including this writer's. The songs are forcefully, wonderfully melodic, while the arrangements are imaginative and compelling---particularly in "Saltbreakers," with its lapping-at-the-shores rhythm, and the magical "To the Country," which features guitar work from Bill Frisell and a children's choir.

To read the article, visit canada.com/vancouvercourier.

After Vancouver, Laura heads down to Seattle for two shows at the Triple Door tomorrow night. She spoke with the Seattlest about the upcoming show and about Saltbreakers, on which the site concurs with the Courier, calling the music "very effective in creating not only a mood, but a sense of place" and the words "extremely visual and poetic."

Interviewer Jack Hollenbach, left a bit dumbfounded when recalling the power of the songs, asks: "We don't know what else to ask here, except, how do you do it?" To which Laura humbly replies:

Well, it's that old mystery that's hard for artists to talk about. Like how do you talk about a painting? How do you come up with a poem? I just sit back in my little space and work away at it. I force myself to set some time aside and do something. Most of the time it's not usable. But sometimes it works. And when it works, it's a mystery and I love it. But it doesn't work very often.

To read the full interview, visit seattlest.com.

To see where Laura will be taking her tour next, click here.

Laura Veirs's North American Tour Dates Announced

After a jam-packed tour of the UK and Ireland last month, Laura Veirs is gearing up for an equally extensive North American tour this May, with Liam Finn supporting.

To get some idea of what's in store for the American tour, there's a quick wrap-up of February, with a "Best of Haunted UK/Ireland Winter Tour 2008" list, on lauraveirs.com. For a day-by-day account, with photos from the road, you can read Laura's tour blog at MySpace.

Here are the just-finalized tour dates for May:

                                                                                                                 

Thu 5/1/08	Vancouver, BC	St. James Hall
Fri 5/2/08	Seattle, WA	Triple Door
Sat 5/3/08	Portland, OR	Doug Fir Lounge
Mon 5/5/08	San Francisco, CA	Bottom of the Hill
Tue 5/6/08	Los Angeles, CA	The Echo
Wed 5/7/08	Phoenix, AZ	Rhythm Room
Fri 5/9/08	Denver, CO	Walnut Room
Sun 5/11/08	Omaha, NE	Slowdown, Jr.
Tue 5/13/08	Minneapolis, MN	Cedar Cultural Centre
Wed 5/14/08	Milwaukee, WI	Turner Hall
Thu 5/15/08	Chicago, IL	Schubas
Fri 5/16/08	Louisville, KY	The 930 Listening Room
Sat 5/17/08	Nashville, TN	The Basement
Sun 5/18/08	Atlanta, GA	The Earl
Tue 5/20/08	Vienna, VA	Jammin' Java
Wed 5/21/08	Philadelphia, PA	World Café Live
Thu 5/22/08	New York, NY	Bowery Ballroom
Fri 5/23/08	Cambridge, MA	Middle East Downstairs
Sat 5/24/08	Toronto, ON	El Mocambo

Nonesuch Artists Take Manhattan (and Brooklyn, Too) This Sunday

With the Brad Mehldau Trio's weeklong residency at New York's Village Vanguard well under way and running through Sunday, the city will also be playing host to performances by a number of Nonesuch artists this weekend.

Sérgio and Odair Assad will perform in both sessions of Sunday's Brazilian Guitar Marathon concert, a two-part, multi-artist event they co-curated. The Marathon begins at 2 PM at the 92nd Street Y and will be hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC radio. The event is part of the nearly monthlong New York Guitar Festival, which has presented more than 200 of the world's greatest guitarist since 1999, including Bill Frisell (who'll be performing upstate instead this Sunday at Peekskill's Paramount Center for the Arts) and Emmylou Harris (who'll be at Michigan's Folk Fest finishing up her tour with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller). For more information on the Brazilian Guitar Marathon, visit newyorkguitarfestival.org.

Playing later Sunday afternoon on the west side of town is Richard Goode, who performs works by Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, and Fauré at the Rose Theater as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers events and its Virtuoso Recitals series. For further program and ticket information, visit lincolncenter.org.

Even with subway trains running on a weekend schedule, that should leave enough time for folks to head down to Brooklyn's Union Hall in Park Slope for Laura Veirs's set at 9:30 PM. Advance tickets are sold out, but a limited number of tickets will be available at show time. For more information, visit unionhallny.com.

And as always, you can find the dates and locations of Nonesuch artists' tours throughout the world on nonesuch.com by clicking the Tours button at the right.

Wilco, Laura Veirs Faves in Humboldt County

North Coast Journal out of Humboldt County, California, asked some of the area's music mavens for their picks of the year's best. Gini Noggle, owner of the local record shop Metro, says Wilco's Sky Blue Sky is her favorite. "I fell in love with this CD," she says. "I have played it every day at work since it came out this summer (I’m not kidding) and it still sounds fresh every time. Jeff Tweedy could sing the phone book and I’d be riveted, his voice is that good."

And Mike Dronkers, program/music director of area radio station KHUM, lists Laura Veirs's Saltbreakers among his favorites for 2007.

To read what some of the other local luminaries have to say, visit northcoastjournal.com.

Laura Veirs Makes "The Word" Top 10 for 2007

Laura Veirs's latest album, Saltbreakers, has been named among the year's ten best by British music magazine The Word. "A constant companion on long car journeys" for writer Mark Ellen, "this spacious and extraordinary record ... is a confetti of sense impressions ... magically arranged by her band." Says Ellen, "I can't get enough of its ringing textures, muted horns and slightly curdled harmonies."

To read the review and see the complete list, which also includes such heavy hitters as Radiohead, Arcade Fire, and Chemical Brothers, visit wordmagazine.co.uk.

Laura Veirs Tells Stereogum About Her New Teaching Gig

Lucky Portlanders recently learned that taking music lessons doesn't have to be such a chore, when Laura Veirs announced she'd be teaching guitar, banjo, and songwriting lessons from her home in Oregon's biggest city. This boon for the Beaver State brought a few questions to mind for Stereogum.com's Brandon Stosuy and his weekly feature, Quit Your Day Job. In this week's issue, Laura gives all the details on the new gig and weighs in on the pros and cons of Guitar Hero.

To read the interview and find out how you can sign up for lessons with Laura, visit stereogum.com. You can also get a quick starter lesson of your own on MP3 there as Laura walks you through "Cluck Old Hen" on banjo.

Laura Veirs and Saltbreakers Perform on Studio360

"Laura Veirs made a name for herself originally as a folksy girl with a guitar," says Studio360 host Kurt Andersen, "but now she's one of a handful of musicians bringing that whimsical, brainy sensibility into the realm of indie rock." Laura and her band, Saltbreakers, recently visited PRI/WNYC's Studio360 to discuss her latest album, which shares its name both with the band and one of its tracks. In addition to discussing everything from Laura's early camping trips with her family to her punk-rock rebellious days, she and the band play two tunes ("Wandering Kind" and the title track) live in the studio. Laura also reveals that "saltbreakers" is an old nautical term for ocean waves and became an apt metaphor for some recent ups and downs she experienced in her own life.

You can hear the live performances and the entire segment at studio360.org.

RS: Wilco and Laura Veirs, Stars of the Universe

Inside the 40th Anniversary edition of Rolling Stone and in the first-ever digital edition of the entire magazine is a snazzy four-page foldout devoted to the best in the "indie rock universe," riffing off the interplanetary theme with subheadings like "Intergalactic Ear Killers" and "Lost in Bass."

Under the category of "Pink Moon," songsters through whom "Nick Drake's acoustic spirit shines on in the spheres" are Laura Veirs and Sufjan Stevens. Positioned at the very center of the spread and, therefore, the sonic solar system, is Wilco, among the Masters of the Universe ("Year in, year out, it's their cosmos—everybody else just rocks in it.").

To head to the RS indie rock universe, scroll to page 68 of the digital edition at rollingstone.com.

The Decemberists Cancel Tour with Laura Veirs

With much regret, The Decemberists have had to cancel the remainder of their "The Long and Short of It" tour, which Laura Veirs and Saltbreakers were slated to support. The Decemberists have released the following statement:

One of our band members has been ill for a while but we thought all would be well in time for these tour dates. After a couple shows, though, it has become clear that the illness is much worse than we had initially realized. We need to return home so our friend can mend.

It saddens us to disappoint our fans. We hope everybody understands it is only because of an extreme situation that we had to cancel a tour we've all been excited about doing since the idea was originally hatched.

Our deepest apologies but at this time no plans are being made to reschedule the dates. Ticket holders should seek refunds at point of purchase.