Rhiannon Giddens reunites with her former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson on What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, out now. Produced by Giddens and Joseph "joebass" DeJarnette, the album features Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle, playing 18 of their favorite North Carolina tunes. Many were learned from their late mentor, legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician Joe Thompson; one is from another musical hero, the late Etta Baker. Giddens and Robinson recorded outdoors at Thompson’s and Baker’s North Carolina homes, as well as the former plantation Mill Prong House, accompanied by the sounds of nature. You can watch eight performance videos from the album here. Giddens leads her first-ever festival, Biscuits & Banjos, in Durham, NC, next weekend, then goes on tour with Robinson.

Randy Newman was the musical guest on Netflix's Everybody's Live with John Mulaney. You can watch him perform "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and "Political Science" here. Also on the episode were David Letterman, Hannibal Buress, Leanne Morgan, and Nikki Glaser. 

Ringdown—the duo of Danni Lee Parpan and Caroline Shaw—has shared the single “Emotional Absentee” from their upcoming debut album, Lady on the Bike, out May 9. The song, about trying to create a deeper connection with someone but realizing they are emotionally unavailable, features indie electro-pop group New Body Electric. You can watch the visualizer for it here. Ringdown says: "The moral of ‘Emotional Absentee’ is that when someone shows you who they are, pay attention, and when they tell you they’ve changed, run."

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, has announced its 2025–26 concert season, including Zellerbach Hall performances by Kronos Quartet, Jeremy Denk, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Chris Thile, and Rhiannon Giddens and Silkroad Ensemble.

"Every once in a while, you come across someone so skilled with an instrument that it makes you reconsider what you thought was possible," NPR's World Cafe contributing host Kallao says his guest. "That’s how it feels to watch Yasmin Williams play the acoustic guitar." Williams spoke with Kallao and performed songs from her new album, Acadia, and more. "It’s one of the most inventive and exciting performances we’ve had on the show." You can watch it here.

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Molly Tuttle was joined by Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville to perform "San Joaquin," a song they co-wrote for her 2023 album with Golden Highway, City of Gold, which won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. You can watch it here. Tuttle returns to the Opry House in Nashville on Sunday for The Grand Ole Opry’s Titan of Twang: A Celebration of Duane Eddy.

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's new album, About Ghosts, is due June 13, on Nonesuch Records. The album, produced by Deerhoof's John Dieterich, features eight new compositions by Halvorson, performed with her sextet Amaryllis, the improvisatory band featured on her critically praised albums Amaryllis, Belladonna, and Cloudward: Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet). Saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles join the ensemble on five tunes, and Halvorson adds Pocket Piano synthesizer overdubs on a number of tracks. Halvorson and Amaryllis will tour the US in September. You can get tickets and watch the video for the album track "Carved From" here.

Congratulations to Philip Glass, recipient of the World Soundtrack Awards' Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition for his scores to films like The Hours, Kundun, Mishima, and more. He will be celebrated at the awards ceremony and a film music concert in Ghent in October. Glass was given the award in NYC by Dirk Brossé, who will lead the Brussels Philharmonic in performing the composer's work in the concert.

David Longstreth’s Song of the Earth, a song cycle for orchestra and voices, performed by Longstreth with his band Dirty Projectors—Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman, Olga Bell—and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e, is out now. The album also features Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and the author David Wallace-Wells. “Heroic in its scope and shifting moods,” exclaims Mojo in a four-star review. The New Yorker calls it “an album that captures the beauty, and the peril, of nature." And Pitchfork named it one of the 50 Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2025.

Little Island in NYC announced its 2025 summer season, including performances by Davóne Tines in The Gospel at Colonus, Laurie Anderson and Sam Amidon in an Arthur Russell marathon curated by Thomas Bartlett, Amidon leading a shape-note singalong, Jeremy Denk with Conor Hanick, and Ringdown in a collaboration with choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, plus several concerts curated by Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Rhiannon Giddens has joined with music writer Kristina R. Gaddy to create the songbook Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo, due in September 2025 from UNC Press. Presenting music from 1687 through the 1850s in modern treble clef and banjo tablature, along with the stories behind each song, Gaddy and Giddens take readers on a journey from the Caribbean across the Americas.

The band Tortoise has shared its first new music since 2016 today: the digital single “Oganesson,” in anticipation of a larger body of work to be released soon via International Anthem & Nonesuch Records (details TBA). The track was released just as the band performs both new music and classics from their thirty-year catalog at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.