"This past year has been good for new music from the more established names in African music," including AfroCubism, says NPR. Indeed, AfroCubism has made Barnes & Noble's list of the Top 10 Albums of any genre for 2010; The Black Keys' Brothers comes in at No. 5 among the best in rock. Brothers and Ali and Toumani, from Ali Farka Touré and AfroCubism's Toumani Diabaté, make The Huffington Post's Top 10 Albums of 2010.

Tune in to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic today to hear the Black Keys perform tracks from their album, Brothers, which host Jason Bentley rated No. 1 on his Top Albums of 2010. The album comes in at No. 7 on TIME's Top 10 Albums of the Year; the magazine calls it "a classic, unmuddled rock-'n'-roll record." The New York Post places Brothers, an album "filled with ear-candy," at No. 6 in his Top Ten Albums of the Year. Watch a video for the album track "Everlasting Light" here.

The Black Keys play three California festivals ... John Adams concludes San Francisco Symphony residency ... Timothy Andres premieres piano piece in NYC ... Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Low Anthem conclude joint tour ... The Low Anthem joins Emmylou Harris on Grand Ole Opry ... Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin perform benefit in Austin ... Christina Courtin concludes tour with Aoife O'Donovan ... The Hard Nuts opens in Brooklyn ... Punch Brothers close out fall tour in Chicago ... and more ... 

Nonesuch releases composer Carter Burwell’s score for the film True Grit on December 21, 2010. The film is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and features Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, and Hailee Steinfeld. The Coen brothers wrote the script, which is based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Charles Portis. True Grit opens on December 22. The soundtrack is available now for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

The Low Anthem's forthcoming album, Smart Flesh, is still a couple of months away from its February 22 Nonesuch release, but fans have been listening to a free download of the album track "Ghost Woman Blues" all week. The video for the song, set in the abandoned pasta sauce factory in which the album was recorded, premiered on NPR's All Songs Considered earlier today. Watch it here.

John Adams concludes his residency with the San Francisco Symphony with performances of his chamber music by members of the orchestra and the St. Lawrence String Quartet on Sunday. Recent SFS performances of Adams's El Niño lead the San Francisco Chronicle to call it "one of Adams's greatest achievements" and the San Jose Mercury News to call it "extraordinary ... one of Adams's marvels." The Chronicle said of SFS performances of Harmonielehre that "this brilliant and dynamic opus emerged with all its force intact." The Mercury News called it "epic ... one of those capital-E events that music lovers are constantly craving."

The Hard Nut, Mark Morris's 1991 retelling of the classic tale of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann, returns to New York for the first time in eight years, with an eight-performance run at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, starting tonight. The New York Times says: "Mr. Morris creates a marvelously musical, choreographically ingenious response to Tchaikovsky’s great score that has its own magic and speaks its own truths about the nature of love." The Hard Nut DVD is now 33% off in the Nonesuch Store.

The Black Keys' Brothers has been named Album of the Year at iTunes, which says the band "hit upon a postmodern groove that honors the past while ambling toward the future." Also included among iTunes' Best of 2010 are Steve Reich's Double Sextet / 2x5, named Best Contemporary Classical Album, and Bill Frisell's Disfarmer, for Best Instrumental Jazz Album. Brothers also tops American Songwriter magazine's year-end list and NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday's Director's Cut Gift Guide.

Laurie Anderson's Homeland has made NPR's list of The Five Best Genre-Defying Albums of 2010. "Some of the most compelling music being made today comes from the increasingly blurry boundary between indie-rock and contemporary classical music," says WNYC's John Schaeffer. "And it's some of the most provocative and exciting work of the year." As dark as Homeland may be, "this is as accessible and rocking a record as Anderson has made in 25 years," Schaeffer insists. "Whether singing, speaking or doing that in-between thing she does, she is in great voice, and the production sounds awesome."

Steve Reich's 2x5 and the Nonesuch Records / Indaba Music contest to remix the piece were featured on the BBC World Service's The Strand. The composer and Dominique Leone, the creator of the winning remix, talk about the contest, the classical roots of remixing, and why 2x5 lent itself to the process. "Steve Reich's music is so based in rhythm," says Leone, "so when you can take little chunks of it and manipulate that and exploit the rhythm that's already there, it's not very difficult to make something that sounds good." Hear the remix here.

Timothy Andres's debut album, Shy and Mighty, has been named among the year's notable recordings according to The New Yorker's Alex Ross. Upon the album's release on Nonesuch in May, Ross said the album achieved "an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene." Andres unveils a new piano piece, It takes a long time to become a good composer, in three concerts in New York City with the Metropolis Ensemble, starting tonight.

“I’m actually really shy,” insists Jessica Lea Mayfield. “Not musically, but personally.” This uncommonly mature 21-year-old singer-songwriter’s Nonesuch debut, Tell Me, due out in February, balances the warm-hearted with the cold-blooded. Here she talks about the making of the new album, working with producer/engineer Dan Auerbach, her early musical influences in bluegrass and '90s rock, and writing songs "about being mean to boys."