Punch Brothers launched the European leg of their summer tour at Denmark's Roskilde Festival on Friday. Their entire set was captured on video; watch it in full here. The band's European tour continues into next week and includes three more festival dates in the UK and headline shows in Paris and Dublin. And check out a photo gallery from Punch Brothers' recent show as Wilco's special guest at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Caetano Veloso, an eight-time Latin Grammy winner and two-time Grammy winner, will be celebrated as the 2012 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year on November 14 in Las Vegas. Songs from Veloso's catalog will be performed by an array of artists and friends of the honoree. A portion of the net proceeds from the gala will benefit Veloso's chosen charity, Fundación Viva Cazuza in Brazil—a not-for-profit HIV prevention and treatment organization for children and young people—as well as The Latin Recording Academy's outreach and education programs. The celebration will precede the XIII Annual Latin Grammy Awards, which will take place on November 15.

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special, due out on CD and vinyl on August 21, is a wake-up call as the US heads into the fall election season. The album is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store in a very special bundle. Show your Election Special pride with an exclusive campaign-style button and bumper sticker; pre-orders also include an instant download of the album's opening track, "Mutt Romney Blues."

British singer/songwriter/guitarist Lianne La Havas' debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, produced by Matt Hales (Aqualung), is due out in the US August 7 on Nonesuch Records and is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store; the first 100 pre-orders include an exclusive print signed by La Havas. The album is out now on Warners in the UK and Ireland, earning four-star reviews from Q, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, and the Irish Times, Independent, and Herald. "It’s always been clear that La Havas has a special voice, and so it proves here," says the BBC. "Her vocals are soulful, edged with lounge-bar smoke, but each note is sung with force and precision ... It’s a voice that invites you in, and only the hardest heart will resist the offer."

Rolling Stone has published a mid-year report on the Best Albums of 2012 So Far, and among the year's best are two albums familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Dr. John's Locked Down and Amadou & Mariam's Folila. "We're only halfway through 2012, but we've already heard tons of great new music," says the magazine in posting its list of "40 of the year's best albums so far, as selected by Rolling Stone editors."

It's the summer festival season across the Northern Hemisphere, with a whole host of Nonesuch artists—Björk, Dr. John, Punch Brothers, The Low Anthem, Joshua Redman, James Farm, Pat Metheny Unity Band, Brad Mehldau Trio, Lianne La Havas, Steve Reich, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris, Laurie Anderson, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Jeremy Denk—performing at festivals like Roskilde, North Sea Jazz, Copenhagen Jazz, Lugano, Bloc Weekend, Vancouver Island, Winnipeg Folk, Bellingham, Pasadena's Summer Music Festival, and more!

The North Sea Jazz Festival takes place this weekend in Rotterdam, Netherlands, featuring a diverse array of artists, including several familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Joshua Redman, James Farm, Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau Trio, Punch Brothers, Lianne La Havas, Fatoumata Diawara, and Oumou Sangare. Redman, in fact, is this year's North Sea Jazz Artist in Residence and as such performs on each festival day with varied musical projects.

The Nonesuch album featuring works by composer Krzysztof Penderecki and those they inspired by composer/guitarist Jonny Greenwood itself stemmed from a concert in Poland last fall that presented the composers' works side by side. Tonight, the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra, which performed in the original concert and on the album, performs the works at the Open'er Festival in Gdynia, Poland. The concert will be streaming live at 8 PM CEST (2 PM EDT) at youtube.com/opener.

Emmylou Harris, who is spending the North American summer and fall on tour across Canada and the United States, will celebrate the Southern Hemispheric spring touring Australia with her band the Red Dirt Boys this November. The tour begins at the Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday, November 6, and include stops in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, and the Gold Coast. Tickets go on sale this week.

Steve Reich joins the Bang on a Can All-Stars on their three-city tour of France and the UK this week: at the Cité des congress in Nantes tonight, Cité de la musique in Paris tomorrow, and the London Pleasure Gardens on Friday for the 2012 Bloc Weekend festival. As part of the all-Reich programs, the composer joins in performing Clapping Music. Later this month, he joins the ensemble for its six-hour music marathon at MASS MoCA.

Carolina Chocolate Drops performed a new take of their song "Country Girl" for MTV Hive's Stop/Watch, in which artists are challenged to complete a song in 60 seconds. On this take, the band's "country shuffle has a sharper twang and a steel-soul," says MTV, "with singer Rhiannon Giddens showing new dimensions of her voice as she roars through the first verse of the original." Watch it here. Carolina Chocolate Drops are in for two days of music-making at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this weekend.

ROMP: Bluegrass Roots & Branches festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, features return performances from Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers ... Laurie Anderson joins Angélique Kidjo for Celebrate Brooklyn! ... Billy Bragg, Shawn Colvin each tour the US Northeast ... Dr. John, Lianne La Havas play Hop Farm fest ... Emmylou Harris is in Michigan and on Animal Radio ... k.d. lang plays in her new hometown of Portland ... Pat Metheny Unity Band tours Europe ... Joshua Redman joins The Bad Plus in Minnesota ... Sara Watkins joins her brother Sean for the Watkins Family Hour in LA ... and more ...