Ry Cooder will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. He will also take the stage for a rare UK performance. The Awards ceremony will be broadcast live from Royal Albert Hall in London on BBC Radio 2 starting at 7:30 PM on April 5, and can be watched live online at bbc.co.uk/radio2. Highlights from the event will also be broadcast in an hour-long special on BBC Four the following Sunday, April 9.

The Staves, currently touring North America, have announced six headline shows in cities across the UK and Ireland this spring, following previously announced appearances at Forbidden Fruit Festival in Dublin and Bushstock in London. The tour, which begins in Manchester on May 31, will make stops at venues in Belfast, Galway, Limerick, Glasgow, and Brighton. The tour follows the release of the digital double A Side Tired As Fuck / Train Tracks last month. 

The Magnetic Fields’ 50 Song Memoir, chronicling the 50 years of songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life with one song per year, is out now. It's "quite an achievement," says NPR Music. "Some of its wordplay is truly remarkable ... More importantly, Memoir is a tour-de-farce of melody and arrangement." Pitchfork calls it "an immersive, incisive listen," with "his catalog 50 songs richer as a result." It's "a highly entertaining summary of pop culture of the past half-century," says the Wall Street Journal. "50 Song Memoir is a treat." Exclaim! exclaims: "Stephin Merritt is a genius." The video for the album track "'68 A Cat Called Dionysus" premiered today and can be seen here.

Conor Oberst launches Salutations tour … Laurie Anderson performs in Virginia … Devendra Banhart heads East … Jeremy Denk joins Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra … Rhiannon Giddens performs on Grand Ole Opry … Richard Goode plays Bach, Chopin in DC … Tigran Hamasyan, The Staves, Chris Thile play NYC … Kronos Quartet joins Toronto Symphony Orchestra … Lake Street Dive heads West … Audra McDonald is in Florida … Brad Mehldau is in California … Pat Metheny honored at Alternative Guitar Summit in NYC … Rokia Traoré performs in France, Sweden … Caetano Veloso, Teresa Cristina tour South America … and more …

Conor Oberst's new album, Salutations, due out next Friday, March 17, is streaming in full till then as an NPR First Listen. Salutations, a companion piece to 2016's lauded Ruminations, comprises full-band versions of the ten songs from that solo album plus seven additional songs. Reflecting on the two recordings of the songs on Ruminations and Salutations, NPR says "it turns out both approaches serve these songs well. This remains some of Oberst's most personal and reflective material, written in a harsh winter after a health scare, so it was worth letting the songs breathe for a few months before revisiting them. They still sound full of life, and still feel ragged at times, but they shine in new and different ways."

Rhiannon Giddens has shared a video for "Come Love Come," a song she wrote for her new album, Freedom Highway. The video was made by Harvey K. Robinson at The Cypress House in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the studio of multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, who co-produced Freedom Highway with Giddens there. Watch it here.

In celebration of International Women's Day and Women's History Month, we've put together a playlist of music performed and written by some of the women who inspire us at Nonesuch every day, including Rhiannon Giddens, Emmylou Harris, Natalie Merchant, k.d. lang, the Staves, Lake Street Dive, Lianne La Havas, Rokia Traoré, Laurie Anderson, Olivia Chaney, Joni Mitchell, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and more.

Fleet Foxes will release Crack-Up, its long-awaited and highly anticipated third album, June 16 on Nonesuch Records. It comes six years after the release of Helplessness Blues and nearly a decade since the band's self-titled debut. Crack-Up is eleven songs, all written by Robin Pecknold, and was co-produced by Pecknold and Skyler Skjelset. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an instant download of the album track "Third of May / Ōdaigahara" (a lyric video for the song can be seen here) and an exclusive print. The band has announced new tour dates, including its first North American shows since 2011.

The Magnetic Fields' new five-LP / five-CD collection, 50 Song Memoir, is due out on this Friday, March 10. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming as an NPR First Listen, with the songs from one disc—one decade of singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt's life—being added each day. It's "quite an achievement," says NPR Music. "Some of its wordplay is truly remarkable ... More importantly, Memoirs is a tour-de-farce of melody and arrangement."

Punch Brothers and I'm With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan) join forces this summer for the American Acoustic US tour, with dates at the Newport Folk Festival, Wolf Trap, NYC's Beacon Theatre, and more. Guitarist Julian Lage joins the bands, which will play a mix of featured sets and collaborations, as a special guest. Tickets for most shows go on sale Friday, March 10.

Tigran Hamasyan tours West Coast … John Adams leads LA Philharmonic in Nixon in China … Laurie Anderson brings The Language of the Future to Berlin … Devendra Banhart, Lake Street Dive both play Minneapolis … Jeremy Denk joins Vancouver Symphony Orchestra … Rhiannon Giddens, Dirk Powell play duo dates in Northeast … Kronos Quartet is in DC … Brad Mehldau scores Luxembourg film screening … The Staves tour the South … and more …

Rhiannon Giddens has shared a behind-the-scenes video offering a brief look at the making of her acclaimed new album, Freedom Highway. She co-produced the album with multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell in his Breaux Bridge, LA, studio, with the bulk of recording done in wooden rooms built prior to the Civil War. "It's so personal," Giddens says in the video. "But it's not just personal in the way that these are my stories. It's personal in that ... it's a huge chunk of my soul." Watch the video, directed by Harvey K. Robinson, here.