In a new video, Emmylou Harris lends her voice to the effort to stop mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland. Harris joins Naomi Judd, Kathy Mattea, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and local and national organizations to help raise public awareness about an upcoming march to end mountaintop removal and a new documentary feature film about the issue called The Last Mountain, set for release in early June. You can watch Harris's video here.

Philip Selway "emerged from a couple of months in the Radiohead lair," as he puts it, to give a solo performance at the Liverpool Sound City festival this past Saturday. While there, he spoke with Drowned in Sound about his debut solo album, Familial, and the challenges of developing as a solo artist after all these years in the band. He also shares his thoughts on band mate Thom Yorke's dance performance in the video for Radiohead's "Lotus Flower." Selway performs another solo set this summer at the UK's Truck Festival in July.

Jonny Greenwood's orchestral piece Doghouse, featuring music used in his Norwegian Wood film score, received its US premiere in concerts with works by Philip Glass and György Ligeti at the NY Society for Ethical Culture last weekend. The concert is now available online at npr.org. "As with so much of Glass' output, there's something innately cinematic about Greenhouse's work," says NPR, "as well as a regal self-containment that evokes his hero Ligeti and is matched with a thrillingly dark tension." NPR calls it a concert "rich with ideas and emotions." The New York Times calls Doghouse "consistently involving."

Jessica Lea Mayfield has been nominated for New/Emerging Artist of the Year at the 10th Annual Americana Music Association Honors and Awards; the awards ceremony will take place at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in October. Mayfield launches a week-long European tour in Gent, Belgium, on Friday, followed by shows in Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. Her US summer tour opens with a set at Bonnaroo and includes a series of shows with The Avett Brothers.

Laurie Anderson brings her latest piece, Delusion, to the Brighton Festival with a performance at the Brighton Concert Hall Thursday night, preceded by a conversation there tonight about her work, her influences, her collaborations, and her thoughts on art, language, and storytelling. She spoke with BBC 6 Music about Delusion, which the BBC calls "a highlight of this year's Brighton Festival." The tour continues in Germany this weekend, followed by shows in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and beyond.

Randy Newman will be the guest on today's episode of Soundcheck from NPR member station WNYC. Newman will talk with host John Schaefer about his 40-plus year career and perform songs from his latest Nonesuch album, Songbook Vol. 2. Newman celebrates Memorial Day weekend ahead with two performances at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona, which the Arizona Republic includes among the "shows of the week."

Bob Dylan celebrates his 70th birthday today, and what better occasion than that to revisit Wanda Jackson's take on the legendary songwriter's "Thunder on the Mountain," as heard on her new, Jack White-produced album, The Party Ain't Over. Dylan himself, who once described Jackson as "an atomic bomb with lipstick," had suggested Jackson record the song, and it paid off with what HitFix called a "motorcyle-movie nasty" rendition of the tune. Watch the video here. Jackson performs live this week in Little Rock, Memphis, and Knoxville.

James Farm band mates Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland continue their tour across Europe, with stops in Norway, France, and Benelux before returning to the US for four nights at NY's Jazz Standard in June. JazzTimes, in a review of James Farm's self-titled debut album, says: "The band reaches out to a wider world through 10 diverse, intriguing originals that boast melodic clarity, rhythmic allure and improvisational concision ... James Farm is a very cool album."

Senegalese musician Cheikh Lô’s first album in five years, Jamm, will be released in North America June 7. Upon its European release last year, Uncut called it the “African album of the year,” and the Guardian said, “Cheikh Lô is back with an album that reconfirms his position as one of the finest, one of the most soulful singers in West Africa.” In a four-star review, Q called it “true global music to make anyone feel better.” On Jamm, Lô’s mbalax rhythms and signature blend of semi-acoustic flavors—West and Central African, funk, Cuban, flamenco—support his husky vocals, with help from his regular band plus Tony Allen on drums and Pee Wee Ellis on sax.

John Adams's new album, featuring his Son of Chamber Symphony performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), led by Adams, and his String Quartet, performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, is out next Tuesday, May 31. All this week, NPR's Lara Pellegrinelli is following ICE's executive director, flautist Claire Chase, as she goes about her exhausting daily schedule, reporting via Twitter and preparing a piece to air at a later date on NPR.

John Adams received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Juilliard School at the conservatory's 106th Commencement Ceremony and delivered the commencement address at the ceremony, held at Alice Tully Hally in New York City on Friday, May 20, 2011. Also receiving honorary doctoral degrees from Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi were pianist and producer Herbie Hancock, actor Derek Jacobi, and choreographer Twyla Tharp. The full text of Adams's commencement address is posted here.

Jessica Lea Mayfield's "Our Hearts Are Wrong," the opening track off her album Tell Me, has been named American Songwriter's Lyric of the Week. Relix, in its review of Tell Me, says Mayfield "twists her country roots into contemporary alternative rock that even folds in bits of hip-hop, psychedelic-soul and electro-pop without ever stretching too far for comfort ... always keeping the focus on Mayfield’s hypnotic, timeless and vulnerable vocals." KDHX in St. Louis calls her recent performance there "stunning ... with a mix of hauntingly gorgeous vocals and feedback-laden guitar wizardry."