Muscle Shoals Sound, the historic Alabama studio where The Black Keys recorded their Grammy-winning album Brothers, is featured in a new video from Oxford American's SoLost series. As with countless musicians who’d ventured there before them, The Black Keys were attracted to the legacy—and the atmosphere—of the studio. SoLost talks with Muscle Shoals owner Noel Webster about his work to "reclaim its original, irreproducible sound." Watch the piece and The Black Keys video shot at Muscle Shoals here.

John Adams is the guest on WNYC's Soundcheck today. He'll discuss the Lincoln Center Festival's Bruckner (R)evolution series, in which the Cleveland Orchestra "audaciously couples" (New York Times) his work with four of Anton Bruckner's symphonies. The series began last night, with his Guide to Strange Places, and continues tonight and Sunday with his Violin Concerto and Doctor Atomic Symphony. The Wall Street Journal, previewing the series, calls Adams "one of America's supreme composers." Watch Adams and Cleveland Music Director Franz Welser-Möst discuss Adams's "musical DNA" in a video here.

Emmylou Harris is the subject of a feature interview in Relix magazine, in which she discusses her new record, Hard Bargain, and the many unforgettable artistic collaborations Harris has made over the years, not least with Gram Parsons, about whom she wrote the album's opening track, "The Road." She is currently touring North America. Of her set at the Dave Matthews Band Caravan, the Chicago Tribune writes: "Achy, sympathetic and warm, Harris' quivering whippoorwill voice was the most effortlessly beautiful sound heard at the festival."

Chris Thile and Michael Daves have a number of live performances in the coming weeks, starting with a set at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival this Thursday. Audiophile Audition gives their album Sleep with One Eye Open a perfect five stars, saying: "If the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack raised the mainstream awareness of bluegrass, then Sleep with One Eye Open delivers on its promise." Sequenza21 calls it "beautifully simple ... an object lesson in how to do it right."

Laurie Anderson recently participated in a lecture/performance and discussion at the Venice Biennale titled "A Short Talk on Places." She also sat down for a video interview on a wide range of subjects, including technology, music, the cultural ties that connect the world's cities, the art scene, the nature of dreams, the power of language, and her husband, Lou Reed. Watch the talk and the interview here. Laurie Anderson performs at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival in NYC next month.

The Black Keys will be among the headliners at the Virgin Mobile Freefest, taking place September 10 in Maryland. The line-up also includes TV on the Radio, Cee Lo Green, Patti Smith, and more. Free tickets will be given out this Friday. Despite heavy rain at the Ottawa Bluesfest last Friday, The Black Keys' audience was given "a night for the Bluesfest history books," says the Ottawa Citizen. The National Post, reviewing Thursday's show at Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre says: "The set is bigger. The lights are bigger. But it’s their sound and their showmanship, which used to rattle the walls of little clubs, that is now shaking stadiums."

Christina Courtin recently performed at (Le) Poisson Rouge in NYC, with longtime and frequent collaborators Brooklyn Rider opening. The show was broadcast on Q2's Cued Up. "While taking cues from their classical training," says Q2, "these artists have broken down the conventional walls of a music conservatory and are comfortable playing anything from Philip Glass's string quartets to playing backup on Nashville-inspired tunes." Listen to Courtin's set here.

John Adams is "this summer's hottest composer," says Q2, with recent stagings of two of his operas and, this week, a Lincoln Center Festival series in which the Cleveland Orchestra pairs his orchestral works with Bruckner symphonies. Watch Adams and Cleveland Music Director Franz Welser-Möst discuss the creative process in a video here. Tune in to Q2's The New Canon for a live chat about Adams with soprano Jessica Rivera (A Flowering Tree) and flautist Eric Lamb (Son of Chamber Symphony).

Stephen Sondheim's Road Show continues its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, following last week's opening and the musical's European premiere. The production garners four stars from the Financial Times, which praises director John Doyle's "nimble, sassy staging" of Road Show, "a musical with a twinkle in its eye. Sondheim deploys the same vaudevillian flair he brought to Assassins." The Independent on Sunday calls Road Show "a polished new sparkler in the Sondheim treasury."

Canada's summer festival season is in full swing with The Low Anthem, Wanda Jackson, and The Black Keys at Quebec Summer Fest; Jackson and the Keys at Ottawa Blues Fest; Emmylou Harris at Mariposa Folk Festival; k.d. lang at Winnipeg Folk Fest; Audra McDonald at BlackCreek Summer Music Fest; Randy Newman at Vancouver Island MusicFest ... Afrocubism plays in Portland, San Francisco ... Björk continues Manchester Fest Biophilia residency ... Carolina Chocolate Drops join Béla Fleck at Wolf Trap ... Ben Folds, Emmylou Harris play Chicago's DMB Caravan ... Jessica Lea Mayfield joins the Avetts in Salt Lake City ... Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman duo in Denmark, Netherlands ... Natalie Merchant and orchestra are at Chautauqua ... and more ...

As Björk continues her Biophilia residency at the Manchester International Festival, with performances at Manchester's Campfield Market Hall this weekend and into next, the Icelandic artist has released details of the next Biophilia residency: six intimate shows at Harpa Concert Hall in her hometown of Reykjavik, from October 12 through 28. The first two performances are part of the Iceland Airwaves festival. In this week's New York Times Popcast, writer Jon Pareles recaps his trip to Manchester to see this "new multimedia extravaganza by Björk."

Legendary guitarist Manuel Galbán suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away in a hospital in Havana on July 7, 2011. From 1963 to 1972, Galbán performed with the legendary vocal group Los Zafiros, which blended Cuban music with R&B, calypso, bolero, and bossa and was one of the most successful Cuban groups of all time. He went on to work extensively on several Buena Vista Social Club solo projects with Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Cachaíto López, and Guajiro Mirabal, and joined Ry Cooder for the 2004 Grammy-winning duo album Mambo Sinuendo.