Congratulations to Julia Bullock and Thomas Adès, who have been nominated for BBC Music Magazine Awards—"celebrating the best new classical music recordings"—Bullock for the Vocal Award for her debut solo album, Walking in the Dark, and Adès for the Orchestral Award for his Dante, performed by LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel. (Both albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards.) Winners will be chosen by public vote, which begins today and closes at midnight on Friday, February 23, and announced at an awards ceremony at King’s Place in London on April 18. To have your say, visit classical-music.com/awards and vote for your favorites now.

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's new album, Cloudward, is out now. Halvorson performs eight new compositions with her sextet Amaryllis—the improvisatory band that performed on her acclaimed 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna: Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet). Laurie Anderson is featured on one track. The Guardian, naming Cloudward its Jazz Album of the Month, says: "Halvorson’s fusions of written and spontaneous music reach an entrancing new seamlessness and seductive warmth with this terrific set. Superb." PopMatters calls it "a shimmering, deeply satisfying example of a jazz sextet firing on all cylinders. Prepare to be astonished." Bandcamp says: "It’s only January, but it’s hard not to see this as one of the great achievements of 2024."

Ambrose Akinmusire's album Owl Song, Cécile McLorin Salvant's Ghost Song and Mélusine, and Yussef Dayes' Black Classical Music are all topics of conversation on the latest New York Times Popcast episode, "An Elastic and Impressive Moment in Jazz," hosted by Times music critic Jon Caramanica, with guests and Times music writers Marcus J. Moore and Giovanni Russonello. You can hear their conversation about "impressive recent releases" and this moment in jazz here.

As part of Nonesuch Records's 60th anniversary celebrations, the 2024 Big Ears Festival lineup includes fifteen Nonesuch artists past, present, and future. Ahead of the festival, taking place in Knoxville, TN, March 21–24, we've got a playlist of music from all of those artists: Sam Amidon, Laurie Anderson, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Tyondai Braxton, Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Halvorson, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Kronos Quartet, Brad Mehldau, Ringdown (Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee), Davóne Tines, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, and Yasmin Williams. You can hear it here via Spotify and Apple Music.

As part of the year-long celebration of Nonesuch Records' 60th anniversary, we're launching a new video series today called Nonesuch Selects. For the series, artists stop by the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorites from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson, whose new album, Cloudward, is out tomorrow, kicks things off with music by Laurie Anderson, Tyondai Braxton, Jeff Parker, Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet, and Kronos Quartet. You can watch it here.

"I don't know how often it is that the support act ends up with a five-star review, but the guitarist Molly Tuttle got one from the Guardian the other day for a performance introducing her own musical hero Tommy Emmanuel at the Cadogan Hall," BBC Radio 4 Front Row's Tom Sutcliffe says of his guest. Tuttle, currently touring the UK with Emmanuel, talks with Sutcliffe about bluegrass and performs from her new album, City of Gold, which is up for this year's Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and Crooked Tree, which won the award last year. You can hear the episode here.

"I tend to really focus on the beauty that still exists," Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie Joachim tells BBC World Service's Newshour about her new album, Ki moun ou ye. "While it's very easy to disregard the story of Haitian people as one of struggle and heartbreak and poverty, there are also so many incredible people living in Haiti who also care very deeply about each other, care very deeply about the country, care very deeply for their communities and for themselves." You can hear the episode here.

The Black Keys have released a new single, "Beautiful People (Stay High)," and announced their twelfth studio album, Ohio Players, due April 5. Ohio Players—a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, Ohio, funk band of the same name—features several collaborations between band mates Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with various friends and colleagues, like Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Beck, Noel Gallagher, Greg Kurstin, and others. “We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music,’" Carney says. Auerbach adds, “No matter who we work with, it never feels like we're sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor ... But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me.”

The Yussef Dayes Experience: Live From Malibu, featuring music from Dayes' critically acclaimed debut solo album, Black Classical Music, and more, is due on vinyl and digitally January 26. Dayes is joined by his longtime collaborators Rocco Palladino, Venna, Elijah Fox, and Alexander Bourt on Live From Malibu, which was originally released as a live-performance video filmed in the Malibu mountains last year; you can watch that here.

The Staves will join Nickel Creek as special guests on tour of the US Midwest and South in February. The two-week tour kicks off in Iowa City on February 6, with stops in Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Florida. As the Nickel Creek's tour continues, The Staves begin their own US headline tour on April 7, following the March 22 release of their album, All Now.

Congratulations to Laurie Anderson, who has been named one of the Recording Academy’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Awards honorees. The award will be presented to Anderson and her fellow honorees—Gladys Knight, the Clark Sisters, N.W.A., and, posthumously, Donna Summer and Tammy Wynette—at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles during GRAMMY Week, on February 3. "The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients—a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide," said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. "Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds, and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community."

The second album from Grammy-nominated Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie Joachim, Ki moun ou ye, is due February 16 on Nonesuch / New Amsterdam Records. On the album, Joachim takes listeners through an intimate collection of music that ponders its title’s question: “Who are you?” Inspired by the remote Caribbean farmland that her family continues to call home after seven generations and performed in both English and Haitian Creole, the work examines the richness of one’s voice—an instrument that brings with it DNA, ancestry, and identity—in a vibrant tapestry of Joachim’s voice, and intricately sampled vocal textures underscored by an acoustic instrumental ensemble. Ki moun ou ye draws upon the voice’s historic and ongoing role as a tool for survival, healing, preservation of self, fellowship, and an affirmation of freedom.