Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 recently received its world premiere in a performance by Kronos Quartet, which will give the West Coast premiere this week in Irvine, California. The Los Angeles Times spoke with the composer about this "signature Reich piece" and with Kronos, "the pied pipers of innovative music," about the collaboration. Kronos will give the NY premiere later this month in an all-Reich program at Carnegie Hall. Kronos and other performers on the concert talk about performing Reich's music in new short videos you can watch here.

After wrapping up its current European run with sold-out shows across the continent, The Low Anthem will return to the United States for spring and summer dates in support of their latest Nonesuch release, Smart Flesh, including headline shows and dates with Iron & Wine and Mumford & Sons. The Low Anthem is featured on the bonus track of label mate Emmylou Harris' forthcoming album Hard Bargain; her collaboration with the band on their song “To Ohio” will be available digitally via iTunes and Amazon.

Pat Metheny and his Orchestrion were featured on CBS Sunday Morning this past weekend. The guitarist-composer explained the inner workings of the cutting-edge instruments and performance methods he used on his latest Nonesuch album and subsequent world tour. Watch it here. Metheny will lead a five-day workshop this summer in Connecticut with his trio, featuring Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez, that also includes nightly concerts.

Wanda Jackson was featured on the CBS Evening News last night in a look at her five-and-a-half decades of music making. "You're as hot now as you've ever been," says CBS's Anthony Mason. Watch the segment here. The Denver Post, reviewing a recent Jackson concert, says "her signature rock ‘n’ roll bad girl growl sounds just as sexy at 73 as it must have at 17." KDHX says of another: "It was truly a pleasure to watch one of the first and feistiest ladies of rockabilly (really it's hard to place Wanda Jackson in just one category) work her magic."

The Civil War, the five-part film by Ken Burns, deemed one of the most popular offering ever presented on public television, is airing anew on PBS stations across the US this week. Nonesuch released the official soundtrack recording to the film back during its original run in 1990; it went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. Featuring traditional American music ranging from brass bands to gospel choirs, “the music in The Civil War achieves an eloquence parallel to that of the narration," wrote GQ, "and it reinforces the visual illusion of aching, coming-to-life immediacy."

Pat Metheny and his Orchestrion will be the subject of a profile on CBS Sunday Morning this weekend. On the show, the guitarist-composer will give a behind-the-scenes look at the Orchestrion, the one-man band featured on his latest Nonesuch release, and explain the inner workings of the cutting-edge instruments and performance methods he used on the album and on tour. Metheny will also discuss his personal inspiration for the project.

Sing it Loud, the new album from k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang, was released earlier today in Australia, and lang and the band celebrated with a number of early morning TV appearances there. They kicked things off with a performance on Sunrise, offering their own take on an Aussie classic: the Little River Band's hit "Reminiscing," which you can watch here. That was followed by interviews on Today and One Plus One, with a Weekend Sunrise performance to come this weekend.

The Belleayre Music Festival in Highmount, New York, has announced its 2011 concert season, and a number of Nonesuch artists set to take the stage there this season: k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang, Punch Brothers, and Jessica Lea Mayfield. The festival, situated high atop the Catskills mountains, kicks off on July 3 with a performance from lang and her band. Punch Brothers take the stage on August 27, with Mayfield opening.

Before they left for their current European tour, The Low Anthem visited NPR member station WFUV in New York to discuss their latest release, Smart Flesh, and perform a number of songs off the album. You can hear the performances on WFUV's Words and Music from Studio A and their conversation with host Claudia Marshall on npr.org. The Low Anthem's music "is at times a rowdy stomp, at others a breathless, hymn-like hush," says Marshall, "always compelling, inventive and fresh. Welcome to folk music 3.0."

Today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball, and, as with fans everywhere and in all walks of life, team loyalties run deep among Nonesuch artists (and staff members). Chris Thile wishes his Twitter followers a "Happy Opening Day!" The Low Anthem's Jeff Prystowsky offers predictions as one of the "heavy-hitting bassists who happen to be big baseball fans" featured in ESPN's 2011 "bass-ball" preview. Randy Newman tells Paste: "I love baseball ... I think that baseball fields are about the most beautiful things in the world.”

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang's new album, Sing it Loud, hits stores Friday morning in Australia, where lang and the band will appear on Sunrise, Today, and One Plus One and the album is now streaming on the Sydney Morning Herald website. And now, for the whole world to enjoy, comes the music video for the album's opening track, "I Confess," which premiered today on perezhilton.com. Watch it here.

Jessica Lea Mayfield has kicked off a headlining tour US tour featuring music from her new album, Tell Me. The tour makes its way up the East Coast this week. Time Out, in recommending Friday's show in New York, describes Tell Me as "a fab showcase for her voice, which somehow seems both lived-in and fresh, youthful and cynical." Mayfield has been named Vogue's Artist of the Week. While Tell Me "is loaded with perfectly forlorn country melodies and melancholy lines," says Vogue, "there is also a hint of mid-nineties alt-rock underpinning all the wistful contemplation, as well as the influence of more modern singer-songwriters, like the late Elliott Smith."