It’s Grammy weekend! There are a number of music-filled events taking place in New York City leading up to the main event on Sunday evening, when the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony is broadcast live from Madison Square Garden. Offa Rex, a collaboration between Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, is nominated for Best Folk Album for The Queen of Hearts; Randy Newman’s “Putin,” a song from his new album, Dark Matter, is up for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals; and The Metropolitan Opera's performance of Berg's Lulu has been nominated for Best Opera Recording.

Thirteen-time Grammy Award winner Emmylou Harris is among the honorees to receive The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award this year. She is slated to perform at the ceremony with Chris Stapleton. Tune in to the telecast on CBS, starting at 7:30pm ET, to catch the performance.

The Americana Music Association salutes Harris in a multi-artist concert at City Winery in New York City on Saturday, featuring performances from Rodney Crowell, with whom she has released two duet albums on Nonesuch, Brandi Carlile, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, Valerie June, Secret Sisters, and others.

Earlier in the day and not far from there, Olivia Chaney performs at Joe’s Pub on Saturday afternoon, as part of the Folk Alliance International Grammy Week celebration of Best Folk Album nominees.

---

David Byrne, whose new solo album, American Utopia, is out March 9, brings his free Reasons To Be Cheerful event to Fondazione Prada in Milan tonight and De Balie in Amsterdam on Saturday.

In the ongoing series, named for the song by the late Ian Dury, Byrne presents stories, news, ideas, and other items that inspire optimism—a tech breakthrough, a musical act, a new idea in urban planning or transportation. The new album fits hand-in-hand with Byrne's vision for the series. You can watch the New York event in the series from earlier this month here.

---

Composer/pianist Timo Andres performs works by Janáček, Caroline Shaw, Eric Shanfield, and Christopher Cerrone at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater in San Francisco tonight. The program, inspired by visual patterns, is part of San Francisco Performance’s PIVOT series, and includes a post-concert Q&A with Andres.

“The idea of creating acoustical space is something I think about when I’m writing and playing,” Andres recently told the San Francisco Classical Voice. “You can create the illusion of physical space — wide open outdoors, a little living room, a vast cathedral—you can make space acoustically.” You can read what else he had to say here.

---

Pianist Jeremy Denk continues his run of dates with violinist Stefan Jackiw with performances at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston tonight and Bing Concert Hall in Stanford on Sunday. The program pairs Ives’s Violin Sonatas Nos. 1–4 with early American hymns featuring the Hudson Shad vocal quartet tonight and the Stanford Chamber Chorale on Sunday. Tonight’s program also includes a pre-concert talk by Denk.

Denk and Jackiw spoke to the Boston Globe ahead of tonight’s show; you can read the interview here. Denk also spoke with public radio’s WBUR, for an interview you can read here.

---

American composer Nico Muhly and Faroese singer/songwriter Teitur perform their album, Confessions, released on Nonesuch in 2016, in a sold-out concert at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, on Sunday. The lyrics, inspired by or culled from video and commentary the pair found on YouTube, are paired with gorgeous and expressive music written for a baroque-music ensemble, performed this weekend with the Scandinavian ensemble Nordic Pulse.

Gramophone calls Confessions "brilliantly witty, strangely compelling ... subtly affecting." The Line of Best Fit calls it “bright, lively and youthful … a record of bottomless charm.”

---

Chris Thile, whose new solo album, Thanks for Listening, was released last month, hosts his public radio show Live From Here at Bass Concert Hall in Austin on Saturday, with special guests Shovels & Rope, Snarky Puppy, and comedian/actor Pete Holmes. Gaby Moreno, a guest vocalist on Thanks for Listening, joins Thile as his duet partner this weekend.

Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend, and fans around the world can watch live online at livefromhere.org starting at 4:45 PM CT.

It was announced just yesterday that Thile is the holder of the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2018–19 concert season, the details of which can be found here. Fittingly, Thile is also featured on the latest episode of How to Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, which you can hear here.