WELCOME TO 2025! / 100 OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS PART 6

01/07/2025

Low Pass Alert!

2025 Big Ears Festival passes are continuing to sell at a record pace.

All VIP Passes are sold out.

The popular Premier Pass is nearly sold out for both 4-Day Weekend Passes and most Single-Day options.

Specially priced Early Bird Single-Day Passes are also sold out or supplies are dwindling rapidly.

Don’t risk disappointment – choose your best option for attending Big Ears 2025 here.

A Letter from Our Founder

Here we are! One week into a new year, with Big Ears 2025 less than three months away, anticipation building, and so much exciting news to share.

First, I want to express our deep gratitude to each of you – all of the passionate music lovers who attend the festival, our very generous donors, the extraordinary artists who perform, and our committed, dedicated operations and production teams – for making Big Ears possible. Your support and presence has made it possible for Big Ears to thrive, year after year.

Next week, we’ll announce a dozen or so new artists / programs joining the festival program and new details about a few already announced programs. Soon afterwards, we’ll 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.

Big Ears has other special events, “secret shows,” and more surprises in the works as well.

Wishing you the very best in this New Year – and we look forward to seeing you in March!

Ashley Capps

Founder / Director, Big Ears

100 of Our Favorite Things Coming to Big Ears in 2025

We’re continuing to share 100 of our favorite things coming to Big Ears this year.

Bill Frisell

That’s right – nobody plays guitar like Bill Frisell. And this year, he returns to Big Ears with a new and very exciting sextet, ‘In My Dreams”.

ganavya

After appearing with Shabaka at the Bijou last year, the stunning vocalist ganavya returns to Big Ears with Immanuel Wilkins in his Blues Blood ensemble and will treat us to a performance of her own music as well.

more eaze

Touching upon myriad genres and often exploring themes of gender, intimacy, identity, perception, and the mundane, more eaze is the project of composer/multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice, who comes to Big Ears for both a solo set as well as performing with the heavy trance of Water Damage.

Meshell Ndegeocello

The richly omnivorous musical force that is Grammy Award-winning bassist, songwriter, bandleader and poet Meshell Ndegeocello brings No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin to the stage at Big Ears 2025.

Kelly Moran

On her latest Warp recording Moves in the Field, pianist Kelly Moran expands her collaborative music-making to include a non-human duo partner…we’re intrigued, to say the least.

Zeena Parkins

Harpist Zeena Parkins returns to Big Ears with Phantom Orchard, her longstanding duo with Ikue Mori, as well as for one of her always captivating solo performances.

DARKSIDE

In 2025, DARKSIDE, the trio of Nicolás Jaar, Dave Harrington, and recently added drummer Tlacael Esparza, will embark on its first full North American tour in more than a decade — The Psychic Spiral Nothing Tour. Expect to be transported during their set at Big Ears.

Steve Coleman

The innovative and ever-exploratory saxophonist, composer, bandleader Steve Coleman will lead us through exhilarating pivots and swerves based on some secret, enigmatic internal logic in an exhilarating collective improvisation of the highest order.

Mabe Fratti

The Guatemalan cellist/singer/ songwriter Mabe Fratti has released one of the most intoxicating and spellbinding recordings of the year, Sentir Que No Sabes, “…abundantly melodic, constantly surprising, and unequivocally fantastic.” (The Guardian)

Claire Chase

2025 marks the great Terry Riley’s 90th year around the sun, and flute wizard Claire Chase is joining us to celebrate, performing Riley’s The Holy Liftoff with the Mivos Quartet.

SML

Some of the most exciting new music making we heard this year came from SML who will surely be looked back upon as a supergroup in the coming years. You’ll be able to say you caught them when they played Big Ears in March of 2025.