Dawn Upshaw has been named Music Director for the 2011 Ojai Music Festival. Next year's gathering, June 9–12, 2011, will mark the soprano's fourth appearance at the festival. Among those already signed on to participate are Richard Tognetti, Maria Schneider, and Peter Sellars. Upshaw makes her debut with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra later this month, performing works written for her by Osvaldo Golijov.

Now that Natalie Merchant's brief spring tour of select US cities introducing music from her new album, Leave Your Sleep, has come to a close, Merchant has announced that, following her upcoming European tour, she will return to the States for a wide-scale, nationwide summer tour. Beginning July 12, the seven-week tour will be her first major outing in seven years. Merchant and her band will perform new material as well as favorites from throughout her career.

Congratulations to A Little Night Music, the recipient of four Tony Award nominations. The Broadway revival of the Stephen Sondheim / Hugh Wheeler musical has been nominated for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for Catherine Zeta-Jones, Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Angela Lansbury, and Best Sound Design of a Musical. It has also been nominated for three Drama Desk Awards and three Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Last week came word that The Black Keys would be touring with Kings of Leon for a dozen dates this September. The band has now added several additional dates, following the release of its new album, Brothers, including headlining shows with The Morning Benders, The Whigs, and Nicole Atkins. Patrick Carney talks with Billboard about the upcoming record and recent projects he and Dan Auerbach have taken on.

The recently released album Secret Agent is the latest from Tony Allen, "the man who helped create Afrobeat with Fela Kuti," says NPR. Now, Nonesuch Records has partnered with the producers of FELA!, the hit Broadway musical on the life of Kuti, to offer customers who order the Secret Agent CD in the Nonesuch Store up to almost 40% off tickets to the musical the New York Times called "impossible to resist."

It was just two weeks ago we announced the search for collaborators to remix Laurie Anderson's new song “Only an Expert,” off her upcoming Nonesuch release, Homeland, and the response has been great. The competition is set to increase as the May 13 cut-off date nears, and the public and the jury, including Anderson and Lou Reed, begin to review the submissions. Enter today at Indaba Music, and pre-order Homeland, along with a signed copy of the "Only an Expert" vinyl single, in the Nonesuch Store.

Timothy Andres, whose debut recording, Shy and Mighty, is due out on Nonesuch May 18, is featured in a Wall Street Journal article examining how the young composer, raised on the classical canon, was later introduced to a new world of music that included everything from iconic classic rock to contemporary classical icons like Steve Reich and John Adams, and how this has influenced his own work.

The Black Keys' schedule looked to be pretty well full up following the May 18 release of their latest Nonesuch album, Brothers, opening for Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden, back-to-back spots on late-night TV for Letterman and Fallon, and US and European tours through the summer. Now comes word that the band will open for Kings of Leon throughout September. Also, it seems Frank the Puppet Dinosaur is back with a crass new music video.

Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman kick off a two-and-a-half-week tour of duo performances in Burlington, Vermont, tonight. At one recent duo date, "the twosome played with an unerring touch," says the Albany Times Union. All About Jazz insists that anyone with "the opportunity to see these two jazz masters should not pass it up." Mehldau spoke with PBS NewsHour about his new album, Highway Rider, which also features Redman.

Philip Glass is being honored at the Danspace Project Gala tonight in New York City. The organization is celebrating Glass for what it describes as "his significant contributions to American dance and his major impact on international art and culture." Laurie Anderson will give introductory remarks. Now in its 35th season, Danspace aims to offer choreographers a nurturing environment in which to develop and show challenging new works.

The recent Louis Andriessen-curated concerts at Carnegie Hall show the composer to have "an undiminished capacity for making mischief," says The New Yorker's Alex Ross. Ross looks at other contemporary composers creating outside "a stylistic party line," and calls Timothy Andres’s forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Shy and Mighty, "the kind of sprawling, brazen work that a young composer should write," achieving "an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene."

The celebrations of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday continue with tonight's New York City Center Gala honoring the composer, featuring the stars of A Little Night Music—just nominated for three Outer Critics Circle Awards—along with a host of performers who, collectively, have appeared in over 75 Sondheim shows. John Doyle directs. The benefit will help fund New York City Center’s artistic and education programs and Young Playwrights Inc.