Rhiannon Giddens has shared “Freight Train,” a spare interpretation of the song by North Carolina music legend Elizabeth Cotten, from her upcoming album, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers. The track features only Giddens’s lead vocal and Dirk Powell on acoustic guitar, revealing the economy and emotional depth that have allowed “Freight Train” to travel across generations. You can watch the lyric video here.

Thomas Adès conducts from his Dante at Royal Albert Hall for BBC Proms before Gustavo Dudamel and LA Phil perform from the piece there next week. Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is performed for BBC Proms at Bristol Beacon. Anthony Roth Costanzo continues sold-out run on Little Island in NYC. Donnacha Dennehy's Land of Winter is performed in Kilkenny. Mary Halvorson joins Ches Smith in Lisbon. Chris Thile joins Jacob Collier in Italy. Molly Tuttle and Marty Stuart tour Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.

Congratulations to Jonny Greenwood, who has been nominated as Film Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards for his score to Paul Thomas Anderson's Academy Award–winning film One Battle After Another. Winners of the 26th World Soundtrack Awards will be announced at the WSA Ceremony & Concert during Film Fest Gent in Belgium this October.

Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist Molly Tuttle releases So Long Little Miss Sunshine (Acoustic), a companion EP to her acclaimed Grammy-nominated album So Long Little Miss Sunshine, September 4. It was recorded with touring bandmates Vanessa McGowan and Mary Meyer and produced by Steve Berns. The EP strips back five standout tracks from the album and places Tuttle's voice, intricate guitar playing, and songwriting front and center. The intimate recordings offer a fresh perspective on some of the album's most personal songs. You can hear "Rosalee" now.

Laurie Anderson is on the latest episode of Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud. She joined Freud at the Tribeca Festival in June to talk about courage, Lou Reed, Sigmund Freud, and more. You can hear their conversation here.

Natalie Merchant—whose collaboration with Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Children’s Theatre, Cabinet of Wonder, is due later this month—stopped by for the Nonesuch Selects video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. She chose recordings by the Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic, Sam Amidon, David Byrne, Sam Phillips, Bob Telson, Rokia Traoré, and Flea. You can watch it here.

Flea, Ambrose Akinmusire are at Newport Jazz Festival. John Adams is performed by Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia. Rhiannon Giddens, Hurray for the Riff Raff are in North Carolina and Tennessee with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter. Mary Halvorson is in Oregon. Makaya McCraven is in residence at the Village Vanguard in NYC, where Steve Reich is performed by Philadanco! at Joyce Theater. Chris Thile joins Minnesota Orchestra. Tortoise tours California. Molly Tuttle heads to Alaska. Yasmin Williams is at MASS MoCA.

Trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson have released a video for "Prelude in the Ash," the opening track to their new duo album, Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings. The album features four new compositions by each musician, like this one written by Akinmusire, plus one collaboration. You can watch the video, made by Julia Schimautz from photography by Nicholas Albrecht, here.

Natalie Merchant has shared two new tracks from the upcoming album Cabinet of Wonder: "The Queen of Hearts" and "Humpty Dumpty." You can watch the videos here. Cabinet of Wonder is a digital collection of seventeen songs and accompanying videos from the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and Chicago Children’s Theatre (CCT) due August 21 on Nonesuch. The songs reimagine Mother Goose and her rhymes for a new generation of young children through modern interpretations of the classic children’s canon and three originals by Merchant—performed by Merchant, musicians from the CSO and special guests—in orchestral arrangements by Megan Gould.

Acclaimed singer Anthony Roth Costanzo's Nonesuch Records debut album, Countertenor, is due October 23. It is a companion to a book of the same name written by Costanzo, out October 27, 2026, from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. On the album’s ten tracks, which feature an ensemble conducted by Dan Schlosberg, Costanzo delves into a wide-ranging survey of falsetto. The record comprises a world premiere recording of a new song by Osvaldo Golijov; arias by Philip Glass, W.A. Mozart, Antonio Vivaldi, and Claudio Monteverdi; a traditional Hawaiian song; an early Baroque song by John Dowland; a Renaissance song by Thomas Morley; the classic Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tune “Walk Like a Man"; and a Klaus Nomi-inspired interpretation of John Madara and David White’s “You Don’t Own Me," which is out today, along with a video you can watch here.

Punch Brothers celebrated the release of their new album, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers, with a set at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island on Saturday. En route aboard the Newport Harbor Shuttle, the band gave fellow ferry passengers a sneak peek of its set with a performance of the album's closing track, "New Book," and a bit of John Williams' thematically appropriate Jaws theme. You can watch both here.

The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers, the seventh album from the Grammy-winning band—and its first comprising all instrumental tunes as well as its first with fiddle player Brittany Haas, who joined the quintet in 2023—is out now. The album features eight new original compositions by Punch Brothers as well as three traditional songs they arranged. The album’s title is more than a play on words: without lyrics to guide the listener, these are stories, impressions, and emotions communicated entirely with strings through melody, harmony, rhythm, and a literary sense of musical structure. The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers is produced by the band and engineered by Joseph Lorge. You can watch the band perform the track “June Apple (poisoned),” in a new video here, and see the band on tour this summer and fall.