This Easter Weekend, Sam Amidon, who launched a headline tour of the US earlier this week following his Big Ears Festival sets in Knoxville last weekend, stops in New York City tonight to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his 2014 Nonesuch album, Lily-O, with a sold-out performance at (Le) Poisson Rouge. He is joined by Bill Frisell, Shahzad Ismaily, and Chris Vatalaro—all of whom played on the album—for this special anniversary concert. From there, Amidon heads north to Massachusetts for a concert at Club Passim in Cambridge on Saturday. Lily-O, his second album for Nonesuch, was called “hauntingly beautiful” by the New York Times and “magical” by Esquire, and landed on Mojo’s list of Top 10 Americana Albums of the year. Amidon’s latest release, his 2020 self-titled album, is “a fine showcase for [his] studio experimentation," says Rolling Stone, adding that the album “incorporates elements of spacious, echoing ambient electronic music to complement Amidon’s warm vocals, reminiscent of Nick Drake and Arthur Russell.” No Depression, describing it as “full of delicate noise and artful sophistication,” says it “deserves a pause in a harried time.”

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Further uptown, composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (another Bill Frisell collaborator) is joined by his sextet—saxophonist Cosmo Lieberman, guitarist Emmanuel Michael, pianist Estaban Castro, bassist Jeremiah Edwards, and drummer Timothy Angulo—to perform his multi-part suite, banyan seed, at Harlem Stage tonight, as part of the venue’s 40th Anniversary Season. Akinmusire’s Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, was released in December to critical acclaim, including being named among the year’s best by the New York Times, Jazzwise, Tidal, ArtsFuse, and the Irish Times. “A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023,” says DownBeat in its five-star review. “This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time.” Ambrose was on the cover of last month’s issue of Jazzwise; you can read the article here.

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Laurie Anderson brings her Let X=X program, named after the track on her 1982 debut album, Big Science, with the band Sexmob—Steven Bernstein, Briggan Krauss, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollesen, and Doug Wieselman—to the Pacific Northwest for performances at Keller Auditorium in Portland tonight and Benaroya Hall in Seattle on Saturday, after last weekend’s set at Big Ears in Knoxville. On Sunday, Anderson heads home to New York City for a conversation with novelist Benjamín Labatut at the Rubin Museum for the sold-out fourth installment of About Time, a series of on-stage conversations in which Anderson tackles questions to help reframe the concept of time and perhaps one’s perspective on life. Anderson received the Recording Academy’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award during GRAMMYs weekend in Los Angeles last month.

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Pianist Jeremy Denk continues a three-night run with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Luisi, at Meyerson Symphony Center tonight and Saturday, with a program that includes the world premiere performances of Anna Clyne’s piano concerto, ATLAS, as well as Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

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Hurray for the Riff Raff, aka Alynda Segarra, who began the West Coast leg of their North American tour, featuring music from their new album, The Past Is Still Alive, in Portland last night, also following a Big Ears set, heads up to Seattle for a show at Neumo’s on Saturday. The Past Is Still Alive, was released last month to widespread critical acclaim, including a Best New Music review from Pitchfork, which calls the album “fantastic.” NPR exclaims: “Segarra has created an epic tale of life on the road, a nearly mythic version of their own life story that stands alongside other great American musical travelogues … career-defining.” Rolling Stone calls it an “astonishingly realized singer-songwriter record ... the best batch of songs Segarra's ever written.”

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Pianist Brad Mehldau, another newly minted Big Ears alum, performs solo at the Boulder Theater in Colorado tonight. His new albums After Bach II and Après Fauré are due May 10 on Nonesuch Records. The album tracks Between Bach by Mehldau and Fugue No. 20 in A Minor by Bach are available now, as is Mehldau’s “Après Fauré: Prelude” from Après Fauré, with a scrolling piano score you can watch here.

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Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion bring music from their 2021 album, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, to University of Arizona’s Crowder Hall in Tucson tonight. On the album, Shaw and Sō Percussion developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” the pop music of ABBA, and more. NPR Music's Tom Huizenga says the album “showcases Shaw's flexible voice—clear as a mountain stream, flowing with expression in many directions.”

Last week, Ringdown—the duo featuring Shaw and fellow creator-musician Danni Lee—released "Two-Step," its first single via Nonesuch Records, following the group’s Big Ears debut. You can listen to the song here.