Odaline de la Martinez [Malcolm Crowther]

I SOMETIMES think I’d rather know less than more about what happens in America: it’s too depressing. But despite the best efforts of Donald Trump, the country has a rich musical life we need to know about. And ensuring we do is the London Festival of American Music that runs Nov 9-13 at the Warehouse: a tucked-away venue in Waterloo, worth exploring if you’ve never been.

It’s a festival that does embrace big names – from George Gershwin to Dolly Parton! – but tends to home in on music by less mainstream ones from the contemporary world.

This year it platforms 30 composers, with three world premieres, 22 UK premieres. And in charge, as always, is the irrepressible Odaline de la Martínez – a pioneering figure who was the first woman to conduct at the Proms – with her own, long-established ensemble Lontano.

Programmes embrace Latino influences, Afro-American, percussion music… and close with a choral evening led by voice specialist Suzi Digby. Take your Stars & Stripes but leave the Maga cap at home. lontano.co.uk

• Another celebration of Americana happens at Wigmore Hall, Nov 7, with two concerts that import to London the spirit of the Yellow Barn: an idyllic venue in Vermont that gathers chamber players from around the world, gives them residencies, and puts on festivals.

This showcase day delivers a community of performers associated with Yellow Barn, including violinist Anthony Marwood, pianists Julian Chan and Alasdair Beatson, and many more. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Still thinking of America, one of its greatest pianists, Stephen Kovacevich, died last week at the age of 86. He played core Viennese repertoire – Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms – with utter mastery. And though American, he lived in Hampstead where he dined night after night, often alone, in the same restaurant at South End Green. His passing is a huge loss to the keyboard world.

Meanwhile, still with us at the age of 90 is the American minimalist composer Steve Reich, whose big birthday is marked at the Barbican, Nov 12, with an LSO concert of his pulsating, mesmerising scores – invariably more rewarding than the music of his rival Philip Glass. barbican.org.uk

• Also at the Barbican this week, Thomas Adès conducts his own music alongside that of Sibelius, Nov 8. And to the same venue, Nov 9, Raphael Pichon brings over from France his charismatic group Pygmalion – a must-hear – for a programme based round Mozart’s “Great” C Minor Mass. barbican.org.uk

• Star female trumpeters didn’t exist until Alison Balsom arrived on the scene, and now she’s retired. But her mantle has passed to the Norwegian virtuoso Tina Thing Helseth who is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Nov 7, paying tribute to the charmed world of Nadia Boulanger and her friends/associates/pupils in early 20th Paris. southbankcentre.co.uk

• For German Lieder fans, the dashing baritone Benjamin Appl sings Schumann, Brahms and Mahler at Wigmore Hall, Nov 8, accompanied not by a piano but the Jerusalem String Quartet.

While the comparably dashing Italian baritone Andrè Schuen (a go-to Don Giovanni on the world stage these days) sings two of Schumann’s classic song-cycles at Temple Church, Nov 12, accompanied by Julius Drake, who isn’t without dash himself. templemusic.org