Laurie Anderson concludes her weeklong California tour with two performances of her solo retrospective work Transitory Life at Yoshi's in San Francisco, Saturday and Sunday nights. The piece includes various songs and stories from Anderson's solo shows The Speed of Darkness, Happiness, The End of the Moon, and her latest Nonesuch release, Homeland.

Anderson was recently on a panel of judges for YouTube Play, a video biennial from YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum created to showcase talent in the ever-expanding realm of online video. The top videos were revealed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York yesterday and will be presented at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao, Berlin, and Venice this weekend. For more information and to watch the winning videos online, visit guggenheim.org and youtube.com/play.

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David Byrne will be at the Vancouver Playhouse in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday for the latest in his series of panel discussions Cities, Bicycles, and the Future of Getting Around. Byrne will be joined at the Playhouse by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, urban theorist Erick Villagomez, and bicycle advocate Amy Walker.

Byrne has created a limited-edition print run of his tree drawing Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return). Sales from this archival pigment print edition of 600 benefit Creative Time, which aims to commission, produce, and present ground-breaking art. You can pick up a copy at 20x200.com.

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The Carolina Chocolate Drops conclude the current US leg of their fall tour in Illinois this weekend with a performance at Park West in Chicago tonight and a headlining set at the Deep Blue Innovators Festival at the Rivoli Theatre in Monmouth, Illinois, on Saturday.

Previewing tonight's show, the Chicagoist says "the Drops manage to deliver old-time string music with a fresh, youthful vigor. This energy is only intensified in their live performance ... The stage is in a constant state of flux as all three dance, sing, and trade off with a plethora of instruments, including banjo, fiddle, kazoo, jug, bones, and harmonica." 

The Huffington Post, in its preview of the show, says: "Longtime fans and first-time listeners alike will be stomping their feet as the Durham, NC, trio plays and sings traditional string band music, and it's impossible not to love their covers of more contemporary popular music."

The Chocolate Drops begin a three-week European tour next month, starting with a show at the famed Union Chapel on November 8. They return to the States to continue their tour at the end of November.

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Shawn Colvin plays four sets over three nights this weekend. First up, she performs at the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, tonight, with proceeds going to support the new Dale & Francis Hughes Cancer Center. On Saturday, Colvin plays two sets at the Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, and on Sunday, she performs at the Skowhegan Opera House in Skowhegan, Maine. Colvin spoke with the Kennebec Journal about the show and her latest Nonesuch release, Live, for a Q&A at kjonline.com.

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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Philip Glass will receive the 2010 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Opera Honors Award at The Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC, tonight. The awards ceremony and concert will feature musical tributes from soloists joined by the Washington National Opera Orchestra.

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Emmylou Harris performs with Elvis Costello in the Bridge School Benefit Concert taking place at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, on Saturday. This is the 24th year of the benefit concert and includes a set from T Bone Burnett's Speaking Clock Revue.

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Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica close out their European tour at Max Reger Hall in Weiden, Germany, tonight. The group launches a two-week North American tour at Seattle's Benaroya Hall next Friday.

The Bay Area Reporter's Tim Pfaff, in a preview of their October 31 performance in Berkeley, says their recently released Nonesuch album, De Profundis, includes "music about which I was previously entirely unaware that I would not now want to live without." Read the article at ebar.com.

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The Low Anthem gives a preview of their fall tour at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine, tonight, opening for Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band. The US tour begins in earnest November 8 when the band plays a solo show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, followed by ten shows with Emmylou Harris followed by several more with Carolina Chocolate Drops.

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Stephin Merritt introduces the 1945 film And Then There Were None at the 92YTribeca Screening Room in New York City tonight. Rene Clair's country-house mystery film is a part of the venue's series Stephin Merritt Presents: Gatherings at Country Houses. Merritt and The Magnetic Fields are the subject of the new documentary Strange Powers, which opens Wednesday at New York's Film Forum.

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Pat Metheny concludes his fall Orchestrion tour with two final performances this weekend. First up is a show at the Tilles Center in Brookeville, New York, following by a closing-night show at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, Connecticut.

Metheny's tour has been filled with praise, including a recent review by the Buffalo News, which describes Metheny's Orchestrion performance last weekend as "dazzling ... profound, interesting, soulful and genre-busting."

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Joshua Redman and his Trio, featuring bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, spend this weekend at Georgia universities. The Trio, which is featured on Redman's latest Nonesuch release, Compass, perform in the Hoag Auditorium at North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega, tonight, and in Spivey Hall at Clayton State University in Morrow, on Saturday.

The Washington Post reviewed Redman and his trio's residency at Blues Alley in Washington, DC, last weekend. "Redman has a knack for buffing up melodies on the fly," writes Post reviewer Aaron Leitko. "He can take a familiar series of notes and wring it into exotic new shapes." Read the complete review at washingtonpost.com.

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Chris Thile performs a sold-out duo show with fellow Brooklyn-based musician Michael Daves in the intimate space of New York's Rockwood Music Hall Sunday night.

Thile joins up with his fellow Punch Brothers next week to continue their US tour. Last night, the band joined Dierks Bentley on stage at Southpaw in Brooklyn, and the night before they performed at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan as part of T Bone Burnett's Speaking Clock Revue.

The Wall Street Journal, in its review of the show at the Beacon, described the band as "dazzling"; Rolling Stone called them a "fine, brash bluegrass outfit." The New York Times says Punch Brothers added "youthful verve" to the proceedings, with their "breakneck bluegrass picking and warped traditionalism."

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Sara Watkins performs two shows with John Prine this weekend: the Louisville Palace in Louisville, Kentucky, tonight, and the Palace Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, tomorrow.

She was featured on the live cinecast of A Prairie Home Companion, which was broadcast in movie theaters across North America last night. Many theaters will air an encore presentation of the show Monday night. To find out where, visit prairiehome.publicradio.org.