John Adams—fresh off the critically acclaimed West Coast, Left Coast festival he curated for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall these past few weeks—heads to the East Coast this weekend to conduct the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a performance of his 2000 piece El Niño at Carnegie Hall on Sunday. Dawn Upshaw originated the soprano role in the piece's premiere at the Châtelet in Paris, eight years ago this week, with Willard White and the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, the cast featured on the Nonesuch recording. This Sunday, she reprises the role in Carnegie's Stern Auditorium, with Michelle DeYoung in the mezzo-soprano role and Eric Owens as bass-baritone, along with the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

"If you’re looking for an alternative to the seasonal parade of Messiah performances," writes the New York Times's Allan Kozinn in recommending the performance, there's "John Adams’s colorful oratorio, El Niño." The New Yorker calls it Adams's "moving, multilingual, and very modern take on the Nativity story" and Carnegie Hall's programming of the piece "a welcome nod to a contemporary master."

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When President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, yesterday, he described the award as one "that speaks to our highest aspirations—that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice." Tonight, musicians from across the world gather in Oslo to celebrate in this spirit. Amadou & Mariam will join artists like Lang Lang and Wyclef Jean and hosts Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oslo Spektrum for the Nobel Peace Prize Concert.

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Sérgio & Odair Assad join Garrison Keillor and the folks from Lake Wobegon for two performances of A Prairie Home Companion at New York's Town Hall. As label mates Punch Brothers and Sara Watkins had done the preceding two weeks, the Assads join the program for live performances Friday and Saturday evenings, the latter broadcast to NPR stations across the country. Also joining in on the Saturday show is Yo-Yo Ma.

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Christina Courtin performs at New York's intimate Rockwood Music Hall tonight at 10 PM, opening for Josh Mease.

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Philip Glass gives a solo piano recital at the Cemal resit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday night. He'll perform his Etudes and other works for solo piano.
 
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Emmylou Harris performs in a special event at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre in Nashville, titled Tennessee Telluride, to benefit the Epilepsy Foundation Middle & West Tennessee, Saturday night. She'll join Mike Auldridge, Sam Bush, Byron House, and Jon Randall to support the Foundation's efforts to serve people living with epilepsy.
 
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Audiences at the University of California, Berkeley's Hertz Hall will enjoy a rare reunion as Kronos Quartet will be joined by the group's former cellist Joan Jeanrenaud for the world-premiere performance of Vladimir Martynov's Schubert-Quintet (Unfinished) on Sunday. Also on the program are Bryce Dessner's Aheym (Homeward), Missy Mazzoli's Harp and Altar, and the West Coast premiere of Terry Riley's Transylvanian Horn Courtship.
 
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Brad Mehldau's five-night residency at New York's Birdland with Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, and Paul Motian—which New York Times music critic Nate Chinen calls "an ad-hoc quartet with three eminences and a great younger player"—concludes with performances tonight and Saturday night.

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Joshua Redman's multi-night stop with James Farm, also featuring Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland, at Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia concludes with two sets tonight.

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Sara Watkins performs with Grant Lee Phillips at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood on Saturday night, presented by KCRW.