BIG EARS FESTIVAL
BIG EARS FESTIVAL 2025
BIG EARS FESTIVAL 2025
Adam Rudolph & Tyshawn Sorey Duet Adam Rudolph: Hu Vibrational Adam Rudolph: Sunrise Quartet أحمد [Ahmed] Alabaster DePlume Alan Sparhawk Allison de Groot + Tatiana Hargreaves AMARO FREITAS Trio Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey from a Winter’s Stone Ambrose Akinmusire (Solo) Antipop Consortium Asha Puthli Astrid Sonne Axiom 5 Barry Altschul’s 3 Dom Factor Beak> Bia Ferreira Brìghde Chaimbeul Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino Carlos Niño and Friends Cassandra Jenkins Chanel Beads Chuck Johnson Claire Chase Clarice Jensen clipping. Cowboy Sadness Dan Weiss Even Odds Trio David Grubbs Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn Dedicated Men of Zion EMEL eucademix (Yuka Honda) Fay Victor: Herbie Nichols SUNG Flore Laurentienne Free Form Funky Freqs (Jamaaladeen Tacuma / Vernon Reid / Calvin Weston) Helado Negro Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly Immanuel Wilkins’ Blues Blood Jeff Parker ETA IVtet Jenny Scheinman: All Species Parade Joan As Police Woman Joel Harrison Free Country Joseph Keckler Josh Johnson Joy Guidry: AMEN Jules Reidy Julia Holter June McDoom Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble Kalia Vandever Kelly Moran Knoxville Opera Gospel Choir Kokayi Kris Davis Trio featuring Robert Hurst & Jonathan Blake Lara Somogyi Luke Stewart Silt Trio Mabe Fratti Macie Stewart Magic Tuber Stringband Maria Chávez + Victoria Shen + Mariam Rezaei Marisa Anderson Marissa Nadler Mark Guiliana Maruja Mary Lattimore Mike Reed’s Separatist Party featuring Ben LaMar Gay, Bitchin Bajas & Marvin Tate ML Buch Michael Hurley Modney Nanocluster (Immersion | SUSS) Nels Cline: Consentrik Quartet Peni Candra Rini Phantom Orchard Phil Cook Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith The Mockingbird by R.B. Morris and William Wright Rich Ruth Sam Bush Band Shelley Hirsch SML Squanderers Steve Coleman and Five Elements Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner Steven Schick Still House Plants Sunny War Susan Alcorn Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera Tall Tall Trees Tara Clerkin Trio Tarta Relena Tigran Hamasyan: The Bird of a Thousand Voices Tilt Water Damage William Basinski William Tyler Yaya Bey Zeena Parkins …and more to come!
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About Big ears

Big Ears collaborates with artists, audiences, and communities to create joyful, meaningful, and transcendent cultural experiences that defy boundaries, fuel curiosity, ignite the spirit, and nourish the soul.

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Big Ears showcases the wondrously broad creativity currently at play in global-American-international music that’s not designed to be commercial, but which is nevertheless quietly infiltrating popular culture.

Unlike most big-deal music festivals, where you can map out your concert schedule with high confidence that you’ll savor every second, the sprawl of Big Ears’ lineup invites you to stop pre-Googling bands and just surrender.

Big Ears is not just a music festival. It is a beautiful roadside stop on a spiritual journey.

Big Ears touches the sublime.

If you love adventurous music, if you love finding new music you have never heard before and being completely blown away by it, if you can get to Knoxville for the Big Ears Festival, do it.

Big Ears…could well be the most exciting, exhaustive jazz festival that doesn’t call itself that.

America’s and perhaps the world’s most diverse, eclectic, and explorative festival comprising music, poetry, literature, film, and art.

Contained within a walkable radius of historic downtown Knoxville…[Big Ears] creates its own atmospheric climate, along with a center of gravity.

Instead of sales metrics or star power, Big Ears contemplates the perceptual properties of music

At the silo-destroying Big Ears Festival, music liberated from the confines of category and overt commercialism.

The Big Ears Festival, which unfolds each spring in Knoxville, Tennessee, might be the most open-minded music gathering in the country.

There’s no other festival quite like Big Ears.

One of the most quietly earth-shattering, subtly luminous festivals the world over.

It’s no exaggeration to describe the Big Ears Festival as one of the most unique and eclectic musical gatherings one may ever be fortunate enough to encounter.

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BIG EARS
03.27_03.30.25
Knoxville, TN · USA

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Learn more about what The New York Times calls “one of the world’s greatest music bashes.”