Sara Watkins—who, with her brother Sean, is currently on tour in California with the Blind Boys of Alabama—will soon be heading back into the studio to record her second solo album for Nonesuch Records. The album, which will be produced by Blake Mills, is due out sometime next year. Watkins will be taking fans inside the recording process as it happens when she posts audio clips from each day's session to her Facebook page and website.

The Black Keys cap off release week for their new album, El Camino, with a performance at KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas in LA; watch the livestream here ... Carolina Chocolate Drops close out 2011 in Tennessee ... Elliott Carter turns 103! ... Jessica Lea Mayfield plays Toronto and Chicago with Ryan Adams ... McGarrigles and Wainwrights celebrate Christmas in Montreal in tribute to Kate McGarrigle ... Sara Watkins celebrates Christmas with the Blind Boys of Alabama in California ... and more ...

James Farm, the self-titled debut album from the collaborative band featuring Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland, has made NPR Music's list of the ten Best Jazz Albums of 2011. "All contribute songs to the group's repertoire, and in doing so, they've clearly soaked up grooves and chord progressions from today's pop music without ever forcing the issue," says NPR's Patrick Jarenwattananon. "Then they worked out these textures and tunes on the road for a while before pressing record. The harvest feels unlike an all-star collective, and more like a homegrown band."

Following in the tradition of the 2005 Nonesuch album The McGarrigle Christmas Hour, Anna McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright, and Martha Wainwright lead A Not So Silent Night, holiday concerts at the Théâtre St-Denis in Montreal and The Town Hall in New York City, featuring special guests like Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Teddy Thompson, and Loudon Wainwright III. The concerts are a tribute to the late Kate McGarrigle; proceeds benefit the Kate McGarrigle Sarcoma Research Fund.

The Black Keys will embark on the first leg of their North American tour this March, with shows in arenas like New York’s Madison Square Garden, Boston’s TD Garden, and Chicago’s United Center, with special guests Arctic Monkeys opening all along the way. The shows are in support of their new album, El Camino, which the Daily Mail calls "a tour de force" and the Daily Mirror calls "a roof-raising, spirit-lifting triumph.” Tickets for most shows go on sale to the general public starting today and tomorrow.

The Black Keys continued the celebration of the release of their new album, El Camino, with a performance of "Gold on the Ceiling" on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS last night. Watch it here. NPR's Fresh Air calls the new album a "reinvention" for the band, with their having "achieved a sound that's frequently brighter, more open and eager." Tickets for the March 2012 leg of the band's North American tour go on sale to the general public tomorrow.

Steve Reich's latest Nonesuch release, WTC 9/11, has made NPR Music's list of its ten Favorite Classical Albums of 2011. "WTC 9/11, played by the Kronos Quartet, is one of the most gripping, intense, intelligent, emotionally honest and artistically successful works to come out of the tragedy," exclaims NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas. "But I'd also like to turn attention to the wonderful Mallet Quartet that appears on this album ... [and] possesses a quiet beauty that, almost despite its subtleties, demands to be heard."

The Black Keys kicked off release week for their new album, El Camino, with a special performance for some lucky fans at New York's Webster Hall Monday night, webcast live on MTV Hive. The duo "sealed their ten-year ascent," says Rolling Stone, "with a tight and feisty" set, "displaying everything they've learned and mastered over that decade." Watch five songs from the show here.

In January 2012, Kronos Quartet heads to the Barbican in London for an unprecedented week-long residency entitled Awakenings. Kronos performs three concerts in three different venues, gives the world premiere of a major new work by Valentin Silvestrov, collaborates with two London choirs, and engages with young musicians and the public in a series of creative learning events. Integral to Kronos’s work is a series of long-running, in-depth collaborations with many of the world’s foremost composers; these collaborations will take center stage throughout the concerts and events. 

The Black Keys' new album, El Camino, was released yesterday to great critical acclaim and plenty of celebrating all around. The band was on The Colbert Report last night, performed "Lonely Boy" and a web-exclusive of "Gold on the Ceiling"—all of which you can watch here—and performs on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight. Reuters calls El Camino "stunning." The Washington Post calls the band "exhilarating." MTV includes El Camino on its list of the 20 Best Albums of 2011, calling it "positively brilliant." Stereogum says, "There isn’t a single weak track." Consequence of Sound gives the album four stars and finds it "very nearly the Platonic ideal of rock and roll."

Jessica Lea Mayfield, who is currently touring North America with Ryan Adams, is featured in a Daytrotter session, performing four songs from her album Tell Me. Mayfield's songs "are beautifully sober reminders that we're not always thinking straight and it's not always such a bad thing to do the things that you're not supposed to be doing," says Daytrotter, who which calls Tell Me "a spectacular collection of heartbreak and innocence ... Mayfield writes about these lessons that she's learning in such honest and staggeringly sophisticated ways that it's hard to believe that she's only 22 years old ..."

Director Tran Anh Hung’s film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood, featuring a score by Jonny Greenwood, will be released in the US in January. There will be a special early screening at the Japan Society next Wednesday, December 14, along with a Q&A with the director and actress Rinko Kikuchi. Nonesuch is giving away tickets to the event along with signed film posters and copies of the film's soundtrack. Enter to win by Friday, December 9, at 3 PM ET.