Billy Bragg concludes his extensive tours of New Zealand and Australia, featuring music from the Mermaid Avenue albums ... Laurie Anderson takes Dirtday! to Minneapolis ... The Black Keys are in New Zealand ... Shawn Colvin joins Heart in Florida ... Dr. John, The Blind Boys of Alabama tour the East Coast ... Gidon Kremer has two shows in Tokyo ... Kronos Quartet plays Scandinavia ... Punch Brothers are in France; their Austin City Limits debut airs in US ... Joshua Redman performs in London, joins James Farm in Lausanne ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Missouri and Texas ...

James Farm—the collaborative band featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland—launch a 13-city tour of Europe at the JazzOnze+ Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, followed by tour stops throughout Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria, and Poland in the coming weeks. Redman kicks off the season's Wigmore Hall Jazz Series, which he curated, joining the Axis Saxophone Quartet in London tonight.

Natalie Merchant, who celebrates a birthday today—happy birthday!—joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to perform songs from Leave Your Sleep ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to LA ... Timothy Andres performs with ACME in Brooklyn ... The Black Keys' Australia tour hits Brisbane and Perth ... Billy Bragg's in Brisbane and Sydney ... Carolina Chocolate Drops cruise the Caribbean ... Shawn Colvin holds residency in NYC ... Nataly Dawn is in LA ... Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama tour Midwest ... Einstein on the Beach makes West Coast debut ... Gidon Kremer tours Japan ... Joshua Redman plays Coltrane in NYC ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Chicago ... and more ...

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach receives its West Coast premiere, nearly four decades after it was first performed, with three sold-out performances at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall this weekend. PBS Newshour marked the occasion with a look at this groundbreaking work and the career of its composer, which you can watch here. This weekend's performances of Einstein on the Beach are part of a major international tour that heads next to Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong.

Sara Watkins, who is currently on the final leg of her US tour with Jackson Browne, will tour the UK and Ireland in January and February in support of her acclaimed new album Sun Midnight Sun. The two-week, 13-city tour begins in Sheffield on January 23, following a series of US headline shows in December with Aoife O'Donovan, and includes a show at London’s Lexington on January 30 and a set at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

Punch Brothers, who are currently on tour in Europe, have announced a string of new dates for the US in early 2013. The tour kicks off with shows in Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Dallas at the end of January before heading east with stops in many of the cities they didn't visit on their recent US tour, including Atlanta, Boston, and DC. Anaïs Mitchell joins for most of the new dates. A limited pre-sale starts tomorrow. Punch Brothers' forthcoming EP, Ahoy!, is still available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with an instant download of the track “Another New World."

Lianne La Havas celebrated the release of her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, with a sold-out show at NYC's Bowery Ballroom last month. Her performance of the song "Gone" there has now premiered on RollingStone.com as part of her Band to Watch profile. Watch it here. La Havas returns to the US in November to perform three headline shows and make her debuts on the Late Show with David Letterman and Conan.

Singer/songwriter Nataly Dawn, one half of the duo Pomplamoose, has released "Leslie," the second music video from her forthcoming debut solo album, How I Knew Her, due out on Nonesuch on January 22, 2013. Jack Conte, Dawn's partner and the other half of Pomplamoose, produced and orchestrated the track. The video was directed by Eric Kallevig and shot at Prairie Sun Recording Studios. Watch it here. Nataly Dawn plays shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles this week.

The Black Keys launched their Australian tour at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre Sunday night. The tour continues with two nights at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, followed by shows in Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, and two nights in Melbourne. The Black Keys head to New Zealand next for tour stops in Auckland and Wellington. Their new digital EP, Tour Rehearsal Tapes, is now available in the Nonesuch Store as MP3 and FLAC. The Independent says the tracks "underscore the explosive musical energy between guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney."

k.d. lang performs at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert in California, streaming live online ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to Seattle ... The Black Keys and Billy Bragg kick off tours of Australia ... Carolina Chocolate Drops are in the Netherlands ... Shawn Colvin tours UK with Mary Chapin Carpenter ... Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama are in Kansas and Nebraska ... Emmylou Harris plays Magnolia Fest ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica tour South Korea ... Kronos Quartet performs Reich's WTC 9/11 in Italy ... Punch Brothers close out US tour in Alabama ... Sara Watkins joins Jackson Browne in Midwest ... and much more ...

Sara Watkins launched the fall leg of her tour as special guest on Jackson Browne's Acoustic Tour of the United States. The tour, which began this summer with shows throughout July and August, picked up again with a concert at West Virginia University on Monday and continues through November 18 with a concert in Northridge, California, to benefit 88.5 KCSN FM. In December, Watkins leads a headline tour of the West Coast with Aoife O'Donovan.

Kronos Quartet will be honored by MATA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to commissioning and presenting works by young composers from around the world, in the organization's 15th Annual Benefit Gala at the Tibet House in New York City Tuesday night. The evening will feature remarks by Philip Glass and Steve Reich and by Jennifer Bilfield of Stanford Live, as well as performances by Pannonia Quartet and Jacob Garchik's The Heavens. Kronos performs in Iowa City this week, then launches a tour of Europe that features several performances of Reich's WTC 9/11.