Olivia Chaney, who is currently touring North America, recently stopped by WNYC in New York City to perform four songs from her debut album, The Longest River, on Soundcheck—"Swimming in the Longest River," "Kings Horses," "Waxwing," and "Cassiopeia"—and talk with host John Schaefer, who notes her "strikingly pure vocal tone." You can hear the show here.

Emmylou Harris will receive the 2015 Polar Music Prize in a gala ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall on Tuesday. She will be presented the prize by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, along with her fellow laureate, percussionist Evelyn Glennie. The event will be broadcast live on Sweden's TV4, viewable worldwide via TV4 Play. "The music of Emmylou Harris contains the history and topography of the entire American continent," reads the prize citation. "Emmylou Harris makes the world bigger and smaller, more valuable and more beautiful." Previous laureates include Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich, Youssou N'Dour, Björk, Joni Mitchell, and more.

John Adams is the subject of a new short video from the BBC Radio 3 series Great Composers with Tom Service, in which Service gives an exuberant primer on the composer. "John Adams is the composer who wants it all—the 'pulse' of the American minimalists and the voluptuous harmonic sensuality of Wagner and Mahler's late Romanticism," Service explains. "Warning: his music is addictive. Have a good time with John Adams!" Watch it here.

This festival-filled weekend, The Black Keys play three: Governors Ball, Bunbury, and Mountain Jam; Robert Plant is at Mountain Jam and Conor Oberst, Björk at Governors Ball ... John Adams joins Lucinda Childs, Frank Gehry in LA for a new production of their Available Light ... Tyondai Braxton performs HIVE in NYC ... Olivia Chaney tours East Coast ... Jeremy Denk is on A Prairie Home Companion ... Lianne La Havas is on BBC Radio 2 ... Brad Mehldau performs a solo set in Spain ... Randy Newman kicks off tour in Detroit ... and more ...

Lianne La Havas sat down to discuss "Unstoppable," the first track off her new album, Blood, due out next month. You can hear the story behind the track in the video here. "Everyone’s summer needs a soundtrack," says the Guardian's Bim Adewunmi. "It is my humble opinion that London-born singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas has delivered just that, in the form of 'Unstoppable.' Have you listened to it? Go listen now, I’ll wait. Isn’t it perfect? I told you so." Lianne La Havas is on BBC Radio 2's Dermot O'Leary Saturday.

Tyondai Braxton performs HIVE, the work that inspired his Nonesuch Records debut album, HIVE1, for a three-night residency at The Kitchen in NYC this Thursday through Saturday, June 4–6. The New Yorker calls the album "a beguiling, introspective new record," noting that the tracks, "which are transfixing, are marked by fragmented percussion grooves that weave in and out of warm analogue soundscapes." HIVE debuted at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC in 2013, created as a live multimedia work that was part architectural installation, part ensemble performance with five musicians seated atop their own oval pods designed by Danish architect Uffe Surland Van Tams.

Olivia Chaney kicks off a three-week North American tour featuring music from her debut album, The Longest River, at Roulette in Brooklyn on Wednesday, culminating in a return to NYC for a show at Joe's Pub on June 25. "With an earthiness to her expressive soprano, Chaney is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into the 21st century," says the New Yorker. "Baez, Collins, Mitchell, Marling," exclaims PopMatters; "the debut folk album by Olivia Chaney shows that she belongs in this company. It's pretty much perfect."

Rhiannon Giddens joins Branford Marsalis and Friends for a special North Carolina Symphony benefit concert in Raleigh tonight. On the program, she performs the title track to her new album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, as well as other classic tunes including "La vie en rose." While preparing for the concert, she recorded an intimate guitar-and-vocal version of the song made famous by Edith Piaf on a video you can watch here. Giddens' tour continues next week at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, one of several festival sets to come, including Bonnaroo and Telluride Bluegrass. She begins a tour of the UK and Europe at the end of the month.

Sam Amidon made his Mountain Stage debut on NPR last week, now available online at npr.org. Amidon performed two songs from his latest album, Lily-O—"Walkin' Boss" and "Blue Mountains"—and two from his 2013 Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South—"Short Life" and "As I Roved Out." "A gifted multi-instrumentalist, Amidon made a name for himself in his teens as a fiddler," says NPR. "In the years since then, he has stretched comfortably from old-time music into styles ranging from free jazz to alt-folk." Amidon resumes his North American tour in Boston on June 14.

Devendra Banhart and his band toured South America in 2014 with music from his Nonesuch Records debut album, Mala. Artist and filmmaker Adam Tullie was there to capture the trip and has created a short film, set to a selection of Banhart's home demos and one of his poems. "The overall landscape is beyond beautiful, strewn with lush color and tropical flora," says Tullie, with whom Banhart is releasing an art book. "The people reflect this; lively, bright, and full of love." Watch it here.

Conor Oberst kicks off a spring tour of the United States at 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia, on Wednesday, followed by stops in Wilmington and Boston, all with support from Larkin Poe. The tour continues with a set at The Governors Ball in NYC and late-night show in Williamsburg on Saturday, followed by a late-night Governors Ball After Dark show in Williamsburg; sold-out concerts in Maquoketa, Iowa, his hometown of Omaha, and Lincoln, Nebraska, all with support from The Felice Brothers; and a culminating set at Rock the Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, the debut album from the eponymous quartet, is out now in North America (June 8 for the rest of the world). "The album is a knockout," exclaims the New York Times. "It is impressive how much vital presence [Redman] brings to the Bad Plus without altering the band’s dynamic." It's "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting," says NPR. "The ideas are impressive by themselves, but become more powerful as Redman and the rhythm section go about developing them ... [T]he real triumph of The Bad Plus Joshua Redman: It exhibits genuinely fresh thinking." The Bad Plus Joshua Redman begins a world tour in NYC June 10.