Brad Mehldau's Highway Rider receives its world premiere performance tonight and Saturday at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis. Mehldau will perform with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Jeff Ballard, Larry Grenadier, Joshua Redman, and Matt Chamberlain. "Mehldau has built a career on mixing musical styles and influences into something celebrated as distinctly original," says the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "He has put that aesthetic to particular work in his newest album Highway Rider, a piece that flexes Mehldau's composing muscles as much as it does his jazz piano acumen." The New York Times calls it "this year’s most luxurious jazz release."

The musicians of the new album AfroCubism launch a three-city North American tour tonight in Montreal, then head to Boston and New York. The Boston Globe calls this "the most important world-music tour of the season" and describes the album as "thrilling and impeccably produced." The Wall Street Journal says it displays "the same kind of creative genre-mixing in world forms that we're accustomed to hearing in North American jazz." PRI's The World says "AfroCubism feels like something that's long overdue has finally arrived. Triumphantly." Alarm Press says "the album has an electrifying liveliness that stems not only from 15 years of pent-up collaborative energy but more than 100 years of crisscrossing cultural histories."

Ben Folds launches his fall US tour at The Riviera in Chicago tonight, featuring music from Lonely Avenue, his collaboration with Nick Hornby. The 14-city tour features a Thanksgiving weekend homecoming performance to benefit the Nashville Symphony and concludes at the Beacon in New York City in December. Folds will also participate in the National Geographic Live series Music on ... Photography and will return as a judge on NBC's a cappella competition The Sing-Off. Folds and Hornby discuss their new album on Sirius/XM's Bob Edwards Show.

Punch Brothers will appear on NYC public radio station WFUV, 90.7 FM (wfuv.org), today at 1 PM ET, performing songs from their album Antifogmatic. Watch The Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night for their performance with Steve Martin. And tune in to A Prairie Home Companion Thanksgiving weekend, when Punch Brothers will be the musical guests. They open for Dave Matthews Band in two shows this weekend.

AfroCubism will be featured on today's edition of PRI's The World; Nick Gold, the album's producer, will discuss the project, some 14 years in the making. The Village Voice cites two early tracks on the album as "about as perfect a blend of AfroCubism's two dominant cultures as you'll ever find; the rest of the album sustains that high ... At long last, Gold and his cohorts have achieved something that lives up to its original promise, a direct link between the Old World and the new." All Music says: "a true musical meeting of minds between the two cultures."

When Ben Folds and Nick Hornby came to New York City last month to celebrate the release of their album, Lonely Avenue, they met up at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe to discuss and perform a few songs off the album. It was the latest in the "Liner Notes" series from SPIN and raised $10,000 for Housing Works. You can now watch six exclusive videos from the evening at spin.com. Folds launches his fall tour this Friday in Chicago.

Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica continue their North American tour with a sold-out show at the Newman Center in Denver, featuring works from their album De Profundis. The San Francisco Chronicle describes Sunday's show in Berkeley as "deeply satisfying" and Lera Auerbach's Sogno di Stabat Mater, off the album, as "fascinating. The San Jose Mercury News calls that piece "best of all" in this concert of "enchantment and mystery," the new album "superb ... dark and mesmerizing."

AfroCubism makes its much belated North American release this week, followed by a three-city tour of Montreal, Boston, and New York City. The New Yorker calls the project a "collaboration well worth the wait." The New York Times, in a feature article on the album, calls it "a rich yet subtle fusion of African and Cuban sounds." AfroCubism is also featured in a Reuters/Billboard article and reviewed by Dusted, which calls it "elegant."

Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica launched their North American tour over the weekend. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed calls their new album, De Profundis, "profound, pioneering," and says: "I can't think of another soloist before the public today who has Kremer's combination of depth and breadth—and technique." Time Out Chicago gives the album four stars, saying "Kremer’s ear and emotions are in perfect sync." The Denver Post says: "Like Kremer, the orchestra ... never fails to venture in unexpected directions, as its latest thematic album, De Profundis, makes clear." Seattle's Crosscut, reviewing the tour opener, says: "The concert crackled with the sense of inspired adventure that is their trademark."

When Wanda Jackson, the Queen of Rockabilly, recorded “Let’s Have a Party,” a tune she made into a hit of her own in 1958 even after one-time boyfriend Elvis Presley had released a version of it, her delivery of the chorus wasn’t so much a suggestion as a command. As the title—and, more importantly, the contents—of her latest album, The Party Ain’t Over, indicates, this feisty septuagenarian artist is as galvanizing as ever. Check out the cover art and hear what Jackson has to say about the new record.

Kronos Quartet launches a three-year partnership with San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with two nights of concerts at YBCA's Novellus Theater. The program includes George Crumb's Black Angels, Bob Ostertag's All the Rage, Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes II, and new works by Aleksandra Vrebalov and Sahba Aminikia. "Kronos Quartet brings together an extraordinary legacy of evoking powerful expression with an unflagging commitment to supporting new artists and global perspectives," says YBCA curator Angela Mattox. "Tonight's program is emblematic of that commitment to support bold expression and profound human response."

Tune in to hear Stephen Sondheim on NPR's Fresh Air today; he'll discuss his newly released collection of lyrics, Finishing the Hat. Paul Simon, reviewing the book in the Times Book Review, calls it "a master class in how to write a musical ... given by the theater’s finest living songwriter" and says: "I would argue that Sondheim’s lyrics are deeper, more invisibly intricate and braver in their search for truth than those of any who have preceded him." Fresh Air says of Sondheim's Evening Primrose, just out on DVD: "Boy, does it make a case for the early brilliance of Sondheim."