"When I interviewed David Byrne in November, I enjoyed it so much that when the interview was over, I asked if he'd consider returning before Christmas to play some of his favorite Christmas recordings," Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air, says on today's show. "I am very grateful that he said yes ... I consider David Byrne's return to our show a great Christmas gift for all of us." Byrne offers a Christmas playlist with his own seasonally appropriate song and others by Gaby Moreno, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, James Brown, Prince, Paul Simon, The Staples Singers, Neko Case, and more. You can hear their conversation and the playlist here.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Yussef Dayes closes out a year in which his debut solo album, Black Classical Music, received critical acclaim and landed on several year's best lists, with the release of A Colors Show, in which he performs "Chasing the Drum" from the new album. You can watch it here.

Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch Records debut album, Owl Song, is out now. The album, featuring a trio with two musicians Akinmusire has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has landed on the New York Times’ list of Best Jazz Albums of 2023 and on Jazzwise’s Albums of the Year list. Uncut says: "This is subtly profound music, full of meditative, focused beauty." "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023," says DownBeat's 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.”

Portuguese singer and songwriter Carminho has released “O quarto (fado Menor),” the full version of the song she performs live in a scene with Emma Stone in Poor Things, the new film by Yorgos Lanthimos. The scene depicts Carminho singing the fado and playing the Portuguese guitar to a mesmerized Bella Baxter, Stone’s character in the film, which also stars Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo and has been nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards. You can watch the video for the track here.

The original cast album of Adam Guettel’s Broadway musical Days of Wine and Roses, with a book by Craig Lucas, starring Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, is out digitally today; the CD is due in the spring. This searing musical is based on the 1962 film and original 1958 teleplay of the same name, about a couple falling in love in 1950s New York and struggling against themselves to build their family. Days of Wine and Roses marks the reunion of Guettel and Lucas, who last collaborated on the six-time Tony Award–winning musical The Light in the Piazza. “Repeated listenings compound the amazement,” the New York Times says of Guettel’s work, which “has always offered that kind of challenge—initially leaving a feeling of: Beautiful, but wait, I need to hear it again—and those up for it have a way of coming away shining like Moses down from the Mount. The new score has the same effect.”

"Beloved for her enthralling narrative flair, impeccable vocal mastery, and passion for traversing an extensive spectrum of musical genres, Cécile McLorin Salvant is one of the few true reigning divas of jazz," Brian Levine says of his guest on The Gould Standard in the second in a two-part interview. "But her creativity, curiosity, and wayfaring imagination take her well beyond the boundaries of any one style or genre of expression." You can watch part two of their conversation here.

Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch GRAMMY Awards nominees! We're celebrating with 25% off all of this year's nominated albums in the Nonesuch Store using code GRAMMY25 at checkout: Thomas Adès's Dante, performed by LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel (Best Orchestral Performance, Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Producer of the Year, Classical); Darcy James Argue's Secret Society's Dynamic Maximum Tension (Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album); Julia Bullock's Walking in the Dark (Best Classical Solo Vocal Album); Rhiannon Giddens's You're the One (Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Performance); Cécile McLorin Salvant's Mélusine (Best Jazz Vocal Album; Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals); Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway's City of Gold (Best Bluegrass Album); andThe Blue Hour (Best Engineered Album, Classical).

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The latest, featuring music Kronos performed in its third decade, 1993–2002, is out now. It includes works the quartet recorded on Nonesuch by Alberto Domínguez, R.D. Burman, Alfred Schnittke, Lee Hyla and Allen Ginsberg, Henryk Górecki, Clint Mansell, Severiano Briseño, Tan Dun, Osvaldo Golijov, Guillaume de Machaut, Christopher Tye, John Cage, Hildegard von Bingen, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Sapo Perapaskero, Carlos Paredes, Michael Daugherty, Scott Johnson, Esquivel, Café Tacvba, Sofia Gubaidulina, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, and Morton Feldman. You can hear it here.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway have released a live performance video of "Where Did All the Wild Things Go?,” a song from their Grammy-nominated new album, City of Gold, filmed at Sound Emporium Studio A in Nashville, where the album was made. "When I wrote [the song] with Ketch Secor, I couldn’t wait to play it live with my band," Tuttle says. "Since then it’s become one of my favorite songs to perform because it gives everyone the chance to let loose and have a little fun. We hope all you wild things will howl along to this live in studio version!" You can watch the video, directed by Michael Kessler, here.

"Centered around joy, her new album, Sorry I Haven't Called, is a celebration," NPR's World Cafe host Kallao says of his guest Vagabon's new record. The episode is a mini-concert of four songs from Vagabon's tour, which concludes at the Lodge Room in LA on Wednesday. You can hear the set, including three songs from the new album—"Autobahn," "Anti-F***," and "Lexicon"—plus "Water Me Down," from Vagabon's 2019 self-titled Nonesuch debut album, here.

"As hypnotic as anything she’s written, 'Dawning' is a revelation," Rob Thormeyer says of the new song from guitarist/composer Yasmin Williams, his guest on the latest episode of his For Songs podcast. "It signals a re-awakening of life after a catastrophic pandemic, new love, hope, and, well, pretty much whatever you want." The track—featuring Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, Kafari on rhythm bones, and Nic Gareiss’ percussive dancing—provides an early peek at her Nonesuch debut album, due in 2024 (details to come). You can hear their conversation here.

Thomas Adès's Dante and Cécile McLorin Salvant's Mélusine have received Presto Music Awards. Dante was named one of the Albums of the Year in the Classical field (“Teeming with a vivid array of colourful textures ... full of morbid, macabre delights. Dudamel and his orchestra dash off the incredible demands placed upon them with seeming ease and exuberant abandon.”), and Mélusine in Jazz ("Featuring a tantalising mixture of originals and interpretations ... this record is a sumptuous cultural amalgamation of the stellar vocalist's wide-ranging interests.”).