Dan Auerbach continues his Keep It Hid tour with Hacienda and Those Darlins with performances at Chicago's Metro tonight and at First Avenue in Minneapolis Saturday. After their own opening set, Hacienda joins Dan as his backing band, as does My Morning Jacket percussionist Patrick Hallahan. (In the photo at left, you can see the group in action at their gig at New York's Bowery Ballroom earlier this week.)

The Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot, in recommending the Metro show, says the new album is "more testament to how prolific Auerbach is as a songwriter than an attempt to distance himself from his group’s sound." Time Out Chicago says that with Keep It Hid, Dan reveals "a multifaceted musicality that shows this impressive effort to be much more than a collection of table scraps ... [I]t’s easy to picture Auerbach gracefully growing into one of the most memorable songwriters of his generation."

The First Ave. gig makes the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune's critics' pick of the week as well. While The Black Keys' sound is certainly reflected in Dan's solo debut, "A careful listen," says the Star-Tribune, "will find a more personalized and Dylanesque songwriting style and some experimental sonic elements, along with a few surprisingly lovely acoustic numbers."

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John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, receives its Australian premiere in a new semi-staged production at the Perth International Arts Festival tonight. Tenor Russell Thomas reprises the role of the Prince he performed on the 2008 Nonesuch recording of the opera. The Perth Festival's artistic director, Shelagh Magadza, says that A Flowering Tree will be a centerpiece of this year's events, reports Australian Stage. "We are delighted to bring this beautiful work by one of the world's greatest living composers to Australia for the first time," Magadza says in the publication. There will be an encore performance on Saturday.

Performances of Adams's previous opera, Doctor Atomic, by English National Opera, continue at the Coliseum in London on Saturday. The Wall Street Journal describes the piece as "musically complex and satisfying" and, like the composer's first opera, Nixon in China, "certain to become part of the operatic canon."

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Afro-Cuban All Stars continue their extensive US tour with two shows in Texas this weekend, first at the Paramount in Austin, tonight, and then at Titas in Dallas Saturday.

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Philip Glass takes his Leonard Cohen collaboration, Book of Longing, based on the singer-songwriter's poetry and illustrations, to the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday and Sunday nights.

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Kronos Quartet caters to the younger set in a Family Matinee concert at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre starting at 11 AM Saturday morning. In the special program, Kronos and the kids in the audience will travel around the world through music of many cultures, to experience how music from a world away can bring us together.

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The Brad Mehldau Trio is far from home this weekend, with two festival performances in the Southern Hemisphere. Brad, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard  are in Western Australia tonight, participating in the Perth International Arts Festival with a gig at Beck's Music Box. On Sunday, they'll be in New Zealand playing at Pacific Blue Note for the closing night of the Wellington International Jazz Festival.

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Fernando Otero plays the second of two shows at New York City's Symphony Space with Arturo O'Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra tonight. The show, titled Musica Nueva II: Latin Jazz Across the Americas, explores the future of Latin jazz with new works from a number of Latin American composers from different countries. New York Times music critic Nate Chinen recommends the show as "a program strengthening the case for an ascendant, transnational Latin fusion."

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Mandy Patinkin has joined forces with fellow Broadway legend Patti LuPone, on tour and sharing the stage together for the first time since their Tony Award–winning lead roles in Evita 25 years ago. The extensive tour, which features choreography by another famed Broadway performer, Ann Reinking, makes its way across the country over the next few months and conludes back at home in New York at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall on May 28. Saturday, they'll perform at the Staller Center for the Arts in Stony Brook, New York.

"We've set out to create an entertaining evening for our audience and fun for Patti and me, says Mandy. "Through some of the greatest material ever written for the theater, both sung and spoken, we'll tell the story of two people, from their first encounter through the passage of time in their lives. There will be familiar and some surprising song choices. Patti and I have been friends for a long time, but haven't been onstage together in 25 years. I'm thrilled to be sharing the stage again with my dear friend."

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Joshua Redman concludes his residency at the Blue Note Milan in two sets tonight with Compass trio members Reuben Rogers and Greg Hutchinson. The group next heads to Poland for a performance at Jazz Klub Rura in Wroclaw as part of the Impart Arts Center's 45th Jazz on the Odra River Festival.

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Allen Toussaint brings the music of his hometown across the country to San Diego, California, with a performance of The Keys to New Orleans, also featuring fellow New Orleans pianists Jon Cleary, a British transplant to the city, and Henry Butler, at the Birch North Park Theatre tonight. In a recent profile of Toussaint, San Diego Union-Tribune pop music critic, George Varga, writes: "Even in New Orleans, a city that (at least pre-Hurricane Katrina) likely boasted the nation's highest percentage of gifted musicians per square block, he stands out by a country mile."