BIG EARS FESTIVAL

NEW YEAR, NEW ARTIST ANNOUNCEMENTS!

New Artist Announcements

We’re starting 2025 off with a full slate of new artist announcements and programs.

Stay tuned as we reveal our fantastic film program for this year; two or three dozen informative and thought-provoking conversations, panels, and presentations; three wonderful visual art exhibitions; and two more new performances spaces to tell you about, each offering unique settings for some of our special programming.

Bill Ryder-Jones

Hailing from a sleepy seaside town between North Wales and Liverpool, The Wirral’s Bill Ryder-Jones is a musical polymath with a decades-long career as a producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and singer/songwriter.

Brandon Seabrook

Brandon Seabrook is a NYC-based guitarist and banjoist. His music fuses a wide range of traditions: punk rock, jazz, pop, and metal. His work feeds off tactile sensations; rapid tremolo picking, contorted clusters, and extreme physicality.

Dougie Bowne and Matt Nelson

Dougie Bowne and Matt Nelson create a unique acoustic and electronic soundscape, felt as much as heard. Last September they released The Stars Are Indispensable on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, mixed by the legendary Tchad Blake.

Eliza McCarthy

London-based pianist and 2013 British Contemporary Piano Competition winner Eliza McCarthy will perform Jonny Greenwood’s 133 Years of Reverb with James McVennie at St. John’s Cathedral and solo works by Mica Levi, Gabriella Smith, Christopher Cerrone, and Donnacha Dennehy.

Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez

The bassist-improviser and former Roulette Awarded Artist Brandon Lopez and poet-scholar Fred Moten continue their years-long collaboration with an interdisciplinary exploration of poetry and music.

Hank Roberts

With a career spanning over 50 years, Hank Roberts has played in some of the world’s most prestigious venues with a host of celebrated jazz, improvisation, and new music performers including Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, and others.

iiisa

iiisa is the budding solo project of NYC-based latinx vocalist and improviser-composer, isabel crespo pardo. Their intimate songs emerge from warm sonic landscapes filled with familial chatter and field recordings from their home in Costa Rica. Taking great care, they transform opaque memories into powerful ephemera in hopes of offering solace.

Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer

The combination of modular synthesizer and viola is an uncommon one, but Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer manage to create a distinctive dyad that comes together with grace and truth. They’ve accomplished this by bringing  much more than their respective axes to the table.

Melvin Gibbs

Melvin Gibbs is a composer, musician, artist, and writer born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Time Out New York Magazine has called him “the greatest bassist in the world,” and he is the 2019 winner of JazzTimes Magazine’s Critics Poll in the Electric Bass category. He has a notable disregard for musical and disciplinary borders.

Sarah Rothenberg

DACAMERA artistic director Sarah Rothenberg in her home on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022.

Sarah Rothenberg has a unique career as concert pianist, writer, producer, and creator of interdisciplinary productions. In addition to performing with the ensemble in Tyshawn Sorey’s “Monochromatic Life (Afterlife),” she’ll perform two new solo works for piano: Sorey’s “For Julius Eastman” and Vijay Iyer’s “For My Father” on Thursday evening, March 27.

Tashi Wada

Los Angeles-based composer Tashi Wada presents the music of What Is Not Strange? (RVNG Intl., 2024), his first full-length album in over five years, performed live with vocalist and life partner Julia Holter and bassist Devra Hoff.

Wyatt Ellis

Born in the rich music bed of East Tennessee, Wyatt Ellis has quickly become one of the most-watched young musicians in bluegrass music. In addition to playing with his bluegrass band, he’ll be a special guest with the KSO for Rhapsody in Blue Reimagined.

BIG EARS
03.27_03.30.25
Knoxville, TN · USA

Festival

Explore the lineup of upcoming Big Ears performances.

Explore

Discover travel, lodging, & dining options to enhance your festival experience.

Support

Big Ears is made possible by the passion & generosity of our supporters.

About

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