Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd opened at London's Adelphi Theatre last night, a West End transfer of the acclaimed Chichester Festival production, directed by Jonathan Kent. The production, starring Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball, opened to rave reviews, earning five stars from the Guardian, which calls it "a superb achievement," and the Times of London, which calls it "an absolute bleedin' triumph." The Daily Telegraph says Sweeney Todd is "Stephen Sondheim’s best show and one of the greatest musicals of all time." Earlier this month in London, Sondheim was awarded the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Services to the Arts.

The Brad Mehldau Trio’s new album, Ode, with 11 previously unreleased songs composed by Mehldau, is out now. The album is "full of seductive melody, and in its blues and bop references and surging swing, it's explicitly jazzy, too," says the Guardian in a four-star review. "It bears a lot of replaying." The Observer calls the new songs "absorbing," noting that "Mehldau is so brilliant at 'recomposing' standards that his remarkable talent as a composer is often overlooked." The Ottawa Citizen says: "A potent combination of deep lyricism, questing creativity and bar-raising virtuosity, Ode consistently provides the frissons that Mehldau fans have come to expect and that lesser pianists wish they could evoke."

The film The Hunger Games is due out this week and with it a companion album, The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond, out today. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, features songs inspired by the film by artists like Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Taylor Swift, The Decemberists, and three Nonesuch artists: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and The Low Anthem. "Burnett has managed to create a deftly meditative soundtrack to the movie adaption of the best-selling book," says The Huffington Post, "bringing together big names and indie darlings of all stripes."

Punch Brothers' new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?, is now available on vinyl. The LP comes on two discs of 140-gram, audiophile-quality vinyl and includes four additional Punch Brothers–penned tunes available exclusively on the vinyl album. To celebrate the CD's release last month, Punch Brothers gave a special invitation-only record-release show at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City; watch three songs from the set here: "Movement and Location," "Clara," and "Who's Feeling Young Now?"

The Low Anthem will support Feist on her US tour this spring, the Canadian singer-songwriter announced today. The band will join Feist for four shows in the Midwest in June, making stops in Minneapolis, Madison, Ann Arbor, and Columbus. Ticket on-sale dates and details are still to come. Today's news follows an unforgettable week of collaborations for The Low Anthem with The Chieftains and a SXSW set with Bruce Springsteen.

Carolina Chocolate Drops' new album, Leaving Eden, is out now on vinyl. The LP, pressed on 140-gram, audiophile-quality vinyl, also includes a CD of the complete album. The repertoire on Leaving Eden showcases "the inclusive, always-evolving musical range of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who since 2005 have emerged as an American roots-music phenomenon," writes the Wall Street Journal. "Exciting audiences as instrumentalists, singers, even as dancers, while digging further into the broad legacy of Southern music, particularly African-American Southern music, the group ... have defied genre classification by charging, fully prepared, into many fields."

The Black Keys take their North American arena tour to Chicago for a performance at the United Center tonight. At Friday's show at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, "11,000 attendees rallied around Auerbach's flawless and precise solos and Carney's caveman beats," says the Indianapolis Star. Auerbach tells the Chicago Tribune: "There’s something about those old arenas, where it feels larger than life. It’s like walking into a (big-league) baseball or basketball game, it’s on a different level, and I love that.” At the same time, he tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "We don't change anything, whether we're playing on a small stage or a big stage."

John Adams's Absolute Jest premiere performances continue with the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the San Francisco Symphony in San Francisco ... Adams's Nixon in China concludes Lyric Opera run in Kansas City ... The Black Keys return to the Midwest ... Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach tour premieres in Montpellier, France ... Richard Goode plays Beethoven in Baltimore ... Kronos Quartet join Eiko & Koma in San Francisco ... The Low Anthem plays Carnegie Hall with The Chieftains ... Brad Mehldau Trio tours France ... Randy Newman continues European tour ... Punch Brothers close out SXSW run ... Chris Thile performs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Brooklyn ... and more ...

The Low Anthem, having performed on The Late Show with David Letterman with The Chieftains earlier this week, continued a week of stellar collaborations when it joined Bruce Springsteen, members of Arcade Fire, Tom Morello, Alejandro Escovedo, and others on stage for SXSW at The Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, last night for a powerful and moving rendition of Woody Guthrie's classic tune "This Land Is Your Land." Backstreets was there and captured the unforgettable finale; watch it here.

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, launched its creators to international success when it was first produced in Avignon, France, in 1976. Now, nearly four decades after it was first performed and 20 years since its last production, Einstein on the Beach returns to France with performances at the Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum in Montpellier this weekend, launching an international tour that will head to Italy, London, Toronto, Brooklyn, Berkeley, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong. Watch the official trailer here.

Ry Cooder has been nominated as Best Artist in the Songlines Music Awards 2012 for his latest album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Fatoumata Diawara has been nominated as Newcomer of the Year for her debut album, Fatou, released in the UK on World Circuit; her debut EP, Kanou, was released on World Circuit/Nonesuch Records. Among the nominees for Cross-Cultural Collaboration are Kronos Quartet (Uniko) and Chris Thile, for his work with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer on The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

The Brad Mehldau Trio returns with Ode, out this week in the UK and this coming Tuesday in North America. Ode earns five-stars from the Daily Telegraph, which says it "shows his inventive powers are as fresh as ever," and the Financial Times, which calls it "benchmark piano-trio jazz." The BBC raves: "All three players are articulating a ceaseless stream of fresh ideas throughout this electrically energised session." MusicOMH calls it "an often scintillating and always joyful listen from beginning to end." Early US reviews agree. The New York Times finds "resonant lyricism, floating locomotion, a harmonic approach that brings depth to simple structures and sleekness to the more complex ones." The Chicago Tribune hears Mehldau "in prime form as composer, improviser and bandleader."