Steve Reich's work will be the highlight of this weekend's events at the Edinburgh International Festival, with the UK premiere of Steve Reich Evening, a collection of pieces Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has set to Reich's music over the past 25 years. Scotland on Sunday compares the "long and fruitful history" between the two artists to that of Stravinsky and Balanchine, Cage and Cunningham, calling the new work "a comprehensive and thrilling focus on the relationship between two modern masters." Also this weekend, Reich and Beryl Korot chair the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild's annual Gala honoring, among others, Garry Kvistad, a member of Steve Reich and Musicians.

It was a remarkable week for Wilco shows, with two stand-outs coming from nearly three-hour sets each at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, and Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool the following night. The Boston Globe says the crowd at Tanglewood witnessed "a pitch-perfect tangle of earthy comforts and perilous adventure, during a stellar set from the planet's most radical roots band ... a phenomenally dynamic machine." The New York Press says the Brooklyn set showed that the band's evolution from alt.country pioneers "has brought us one of the best rock bands alive today."

Randy Newman is the subject of a feature article from Newsweek that describes Randy's new album, Harps and Angels, as "an immensely gratifying CD, one that recalls his early work without mimicking it." ABC News calls it "a remarkably strong record" and compares Randy, "a great storyteller," to the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits: "an ace writer who goes by his own set of rules."

Randy Newman was recently asked by Blender magazine to comment on the two Presidential candidates' lists of their top 10 favorite songs. Specifically, he was asked which candidate would get his vote "based solely on this list," to which Randy responded, in a statement that was edited down for the article, that, while he likes Senator McCain's musical choices, "you can't tell anything about a person from the music they like."

Congratulations to Randy Newman, whose new release, Harps and Angels, debuted at #30 on Billboard's Top 200, a career high. Randy is SPIN magazine's Artist of the Day for the "brilliantly written pop standards" on Harps and Angels, a "musically, as well as lyrically, intricate and intriguing" album from "one of the most respected songwriters this century." The Cleveland Free Times concludes that "Harps and Angels is both a great Randy Newman album—which is an impressive feat on its own—and a brilliant and important album in the wider context of popular music."

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer will preview their forthcoming, self-titled debut duo album tonight in a special concert at the Aspen Music Festival. On the record, due out September 23 and available now for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store, are 12 original songs by the two musicians. There's also a deluxe version that includes a 50-minute DVD with performances, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes footage with Edgar and Chris. The Aspen Times says Chris's first Nonesuch record, Punch, with the Punch Brothers, takes "acoustic music to an appreciably higher level."

Dawn Upshaw begins a three-show run of performances at Lincoln Center of the US premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's La Passion de Simone, an oratorio written for Upshaw based on the life of French French philosopher Simone Weil. The production, directed by Peter Sellars, is part of the Mostly Mozart Festival and includes Mostly Mozart debuts for the composer, dancer Michael Schumacher, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the London Voices vocal ensemble. The Independent (UK) calls the work a “magical union of words, music, and theater.”

Works by Laurie Anderson and Steve Reich will share space at New York's Museum of Modern Art with the perhaps not surprising company of John Cage, Andy Warhol, and Sonic Youth and some slightly less likely pairings with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Devo, and The Cars. It's all a part of MoMA's multimedia exhibition Looking at Music, which begins today and runs through January 5, 2009, and explores the connections between art and music during the 1960s and '70s.

The fifth and final season of HBO's The Wire is out on DVD today. The New York City's Museum of the Moving Image recently held a panel with the show's creator, David Simon, and several cast members, which you can now hear online. MOMI's Chief Curator David Schwartz, begins the proceedings by saying, "It's hard to figure out how to introduce this program with the proper amount of hyperbole, because the argument among critics seems to be whether this is one of the greatest shows in television history or the greatest show." The New York Post calls it "unmissable TV"; The Scotsman says it's "magnificent" and "seriously addictive."

It's been a week since the release of Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, and the Toronto Star, in its four-star review, calls the new album "prime Newman, a work of astonishing bravery, anger, humility and humanity ... with complex arrangements and orchestrations that elevate simple instrumentation, music-hall melodies, and vintage folk forms ... to proportions Weill and Brecht might have imagined." The Detroit Free Press deems it "a masterpiece, with brilliantly written songs that run from the satirical to the achingly sincere."

Kronos Quartet returns to Tanglewood this Thursday, coincidentally just two days after label mates Wilco. Highlights of the program include works by Sigur Rós, John Zorn, and Steve Reich. The Boston Globe's David Weininger spoke with Kronos's David Harrington about the Quartet's vital role in the creation of new music and asserts: "They essentially created their own avant-garde." Weininger concludes: "Harrington's musical curiosity remains undimmed after 35 years."

After performing at the Virgin Mobile Fest in Baltimore this weekend, Wilco gears up for its performance at Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts tomorrow night. The Daily Gazette out of Schnectady, New York, more than an hour away, says "Wilco is worth the trip." Next to a sold-out show at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool. With all the travel, Wilco is also making an effort to reduce its environmental impact with a new ride-sharing initiative. Also, label mate David Byrne has his own ideas for reducing congestion, promoting bike use.