Junction Trio Plays Zorn

In the last 50 years, very few artists have been as boundless as John Zorn, from his ideas to his energy to his organization. After first emerging in the experimental Wild West of New York’s downtown scene in the ’70s, the span and scale of Zorn’s work have only seemed to increase over the intervening decades. From his breakthrough reinterpretations of Ennio Morricone and ground-breaking musical “games” like Cobra to his splenetic art-grindcore with Naked City, from his jazz-reorienting in Masada to his compositional gauntlets like Moonchild and Incerto, Zorn has packed several lifetimes of music-making into 72 years. He seems to have only grown more active and tireless of late. Zorn has also been a crucial catalyst for the development of experimental music, whether establishing his great Tzadik label or his New York space The Stone, or convening brilliant bands that otherwise might not have come into existence. After making his Big Ears debut in 2022 and celebrating his 70th birthday here in 2023, Zorn returns to Big Ears with a staggering cast of collaborators for two days at the Bijou Theatre.

In only a decade, the Junction Trio—violinist Stefan Jackiw, cellist Jay Campbell, and pianist Conrad Tao—have become a boundless force in contemporary classical music, known not only for their spirited interpretations of Ravel, Brahms, and Ives but also for their unique relationship with Zorn. He has now written more than a dozen works for the trio, attuned not only to the ideas they present but their personality as people and players. Campbell has said that Zorn’s writing revealed aspects of his musicianship that felt new even to him. In September 2025, Junction Trio premiered two new works by Zorn at Boston’s Gardner Museum, alongside a repertoire of previous Zorn compositions like the yearning and lyrical two-part Philosophical Investigations. The Trio will be joined by two special guests for this program: drummer Ches Smith and bassist Jorge Roeder, both regulars in Zorn’s musical world, too, who will perform several times at Big Ears 2026.

Ensemble:

Junction Trio

Stefan Jackiw

Jay Campbell

Conrad Tao

with

Jorge Roeder

Ches Smith