Brad Mehldau is set to launch his Highway Rider tour with the world premiere of the piece due at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis on November 5 and 6, followed by the New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on November 9. The latter is the first event of Mehldau's tenure as holder of the Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. As such, he has published the first in a series of blog posts on the Carnegie Hall website, offering insight on composition and improvisation.

The Low Anthem's Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, has been named to the No. 4 spot on Paste's 25 Best Albums of 2009, with label mates Wilco on the list at No. 21. The album is "gorgeous chamber folk," says Paste. "[T]hese 12 songs are exquisite." Baeble names the video for "Charlie Darwin" the year's best. In a year that's brought such acclaim, the band's Ben Knox Miller reflects on all that's happened and looks forward to what's ahead.

Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe's tour of Japan, New Zealand, and Australia begins in Nagoya, Japan, tonight. Joachim Cooder will join on drums, and singer Juliette Commagere as special guest vocalist. In the Japanese concert programs, Ry offers a short text giving a little taste of what to expect at the shows as only Cooder could. The Nonesuch Journal has an exclusive first-look at that here.

Last Sunday, k.d. lang was featured among the performers celebrating and being celebrated as Women in the Arts at the Kennedy Center's 2009 Spring Gala. This past Sunday, k.d. contributed an article to The Guardian and Observer Guides to Performing. "My voice and the styles and genres I sing all express my appreciation for what I hear," k.d. writes. "I've learned very slowly and very experientially. I find something and I just listen and experience it and eventually it starts coming out of me ... There needn't be a distinction between your life and your music."

In an in-depth article for Wired magazine, David Byrne examines the history of music, recorded and performed, and looks ahead, offering six possibilities for what the future might hold for creators, distributors, and consumers of music in its many forms. Included with the article are a number of audio clips from his conversations on the subject with Brian Eno, label execs, and artist managers. In a separate article, Byrne and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke chat about the interplay of business and art in music.

Three weeks before There Will Be Blood first hits select screens in the US, the Paul Thomas Anderson film is already one of the most talked-about films of the year, not least for its haunting score by Jonny Greenwood. Today the Nonesuch Journal brings you an exclusive interview with the composer, in which he discusses everything from his musical influences—from Penderecki to the Pixies—to his use of the ondes martenot, an early electronic instrument found in such seminal 20th-century works as Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Nonesuch will release the complete There Will Be Blood soundtrack December 18.

David Byrne was on hand last week for Caetano Veloso's first show at the Nokia Theatre in New York, and he's written about the experience in his blog. In this excerpt, he describes how Caetano and his band allayed any concerns about the mix of styles in pairing the new songs in a set with the familiar older favorites. Riding home on his bike after the show, Byrne passed the brand-new home of the New York Times—a towering skyscraper designed by starchitect Renzo Piano—and took the occasion to muse on the state of journalism.

In a ceremony held at Manhattan's Hudson Theater last Tuesday, Laurie Anderson was awarded the esteemed Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. Named in memory of the early-film era stars, each year, the prize honors “a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” Here is a transcript of Laurie Anderson's acceptance speech from the event.

On October 25 and 26, Glenn Kotche and Kronos Quartet premiered Glenn's new piece for quartet and percussion, Anomaly, at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Last month, we brought you the notes Glenn wrote for the program, in which he describes the very personal inspiration for the new work. Here, in a note he's written exclusively for the Nonesuch Journal, Glenn shares some insights into the process of composing, rehearsing, and performing a brand new piece during what was already a year of non-stop touring for Wilco, and for Kronos as well.

Mandolinist and member of Punch Brothers Chris Thile, Nonesuch President Bob Hurwitz, and Senior Vice President David Bither talk baseball.

Caetano Veloso has written an article about Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica for the current issue of TATE ETC., the magazine of the Tate Gallery in London.

Sufjan Stevens offers his take on the classic Joni Mitchell tune "Free Man in Paris" on the recent Nonesuch release A Tribute to Joni Mitchell. "No other songwriter of her generation captured voice, tone, and point-of-view quite as precisely," says Stevens in an essay on his Asthmatic Kitty blog. "Some of her best songs embark on the persona of conversation, capturing the voice of the people she observed around her."