Robert Rodi

RECOMMENDED Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens; but usually the work being revisited has entered the culture in a leaner, smaller-ensemble incarnation. Whereas much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is already fully scored.

1 JAPANESE BREAKFAST (Salt Shed) With an upcoming big-screen adaptation of her bestselling 2021 memoir, singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner is seriously poised to go mega. Fortunately Japanese Breakfast, her irresistible lo-fi music project, remains front and center in her profile.

RECOMMENDED TAFKAVince Band—as the ensemble is commonly abbreviated—has been around for going on thirty years (it formed in 1996), which is more than sufficient time for its members to have achieved a burnished synthesis; a seamless, intuitive coming together. But they haven’t exactly done that.