John Adams conducts the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in the UK premiere and the first European performance of his 2011 piece Absolute Jest at London's Barbican Hall on Sunday. The St. Lawrence gave the world premiere of Absolute Jest with San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in March 2012. Also on Sunday's program are works by Ives, Copland, and Carter.

The concert is the last of three concerts this month in which Adams is conducting the LSO, following a January 17 performance at the Barbican featuring his Harmonielehre and works by Bartók and Debussy, for which they were joined by Dawn Upshaw, and a concert at LSO St. Luke's this past Wednesday in which LSO and the St. Lawrence String Quartet performed Adams's Shaker Loops and String Quartet. The Financial Times gives the latter concert four stars, calling the St. Lawrence "brilliant to hear," and the ArtsDesk review calls the work "a masterpiece." Adams wrote the String Quartet for the group, which performs the piece on the 2011 Nonesuch first recording.

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Shawn Colvin concludes her three-night residency at Yoshi's in San Francisco tonight. Fans around the world can watch the concert live starting at 8 PM PST at showgo.tv. Yoshi's, in addition to being the site of an annual residency for Colvin, is also where her 2009 Live album was recorded.

She continues her California tour through the weekend with performances at the Napa Valley Opera House on Saturday and Sacramento City College Performing Arts Center on Sunday.

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Devendra Banhart will be a featured guest on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends Saturday evening, starting at 6:15 PM GMT. Tune in then at bbc.co.uk to hear him play songs from his forthcoming Nonesuch debut album, Mala. Banhart also joined BBC Radio 6 Music's Lauren Laverne yesterday morning to play from the album; listen again at bbc.co.uk.

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Nataly Dawn continues her tour of the western United States with Ben Folds Five, stopping at The Pearl Concert Theater in Las Vegas tonight before a return to her home state of California for shows at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Saturday and the House of Blues in San Diego on Sunday.

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Jeremy Denk is in the US Northeast this weekend, performing works by Liszt and Brahms at the Palace Theatre at the Stamford Center for the Arts in Stamford, Connecticut, on Saturday, and performing at Memorial Chapel at Union College in Schenectady, New York, on Sunday afternoon.

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Richard Goode is in the Northeast as well, performing at the West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, on Sunday afternoon. On the program are four of Beethoven's late works: Sonatas Nos. 30–32 and Bagatelles, Op. 119. Goode, about whom the Denver Post said "he might well be without equal when it comes to the music of Beethoven," famously recorded the Complete Beethoven Sonatas for Nonesuch in 1993. His latest Nonesuch release is the three-CD set of the Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos.

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Lianne La Havas closes out her tour of Australia with a performance at The Corner Hotel in Melbourne tonight. It's a sideshow of her sets at the Sydney Festival this past week. Earlier in the day, she joined the folks of Boiler Room for a rooftop session in Melbourne, webcast live at boilerroom.tv.

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Punch Brothers, who launched their month-long winter tour in Milwaukee last night, keep the tour rolling south this weekend with performances at Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis tonight; Worsham Student Performance Hall at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, on Saturday; and Granada Theater in Dallas on Sunday. Anaïs Mitchell joins for most of the shows on the tour.

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Sara Watkins, who kicked off a tour of the UK and Ireland earlier this week, has three shows across the UK this weekend: at The Met in Bury tonight and the Sage Gateshead on Sunday, with a stop at Glasgow's City Halls on Saturday for a double bill with The Be Good Tanyas for the Celtic Connections festival.