In advance of the 2026 edition of the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee–happening 26-29 March–Joseph Sannicandro reflects upon this year’s programming and previews some of the most anticipated performances.
Knoxville, Tennessee’s Big Ears festival of contemporary music first popped on my radar when Steve Reich curated the 2014 edition, and I’ve been trying to find a way to make the trek there ever since. Happily, 2026 is the year, and the line up is an all-timer.
With literally hundreds of artists performing over four days, it’s taken me a long time to sort through the schedule. All of the performers deserve mention below, but space forces me to make concessions. That said, I’ve tried to provide a fair overview of the diversity of styles and artists that have been brought together under the banner of “contemporary music.”
In this post, I present some groupings by genres, themes, and scenes, to make sense of the hundreds of artists who will be presenting. During the festival, I’ll be providing daily reflections from the ground for paid subscribers, and will post a post-festival review essay afterwards for the general public.
John Zorn
Let’s begin with John Zorn, in a category of his own. Across 12 performances over two days at the Bijou Theatre–including the Jewish mysticism influenced jazz composition of the Masada quartet, a rare duo set with Laurie Anderson, and the famous game piece Cobra (featuring an ensemble that includes Wendy Eisenberg, John Medeski, Ikue Mori, Ches Smith, and nine others)–Zorn’s oeuvre over five decades touches on nearly all corners of the industry. Additionally, all three parts (thus far) of Mathieu Amalric’s Zorn (2023) documentary will be screened.
Jazz & Improvised Music
Jazz has a special pride of place in the festival’s programming, and I use this sometimes reductive genre label in its broadest possible sense, from the straight-ahead traditionalists to the most out of the avant-garde. Artists including John Scofield and Pat Metheny are iconic figures in the world of jazz guitar, while Mary Halvorson and Jeff Parker–still veterans in their own right–represent a more modern, exploratory side of the instrument. Groups like Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor’s horn and drum Chicago Underground Duo and projects by the highly versatile guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Marc Ribot often blend jazz with noise, free improvisation, and world music elements. The inclusion of ensembles like Ghost Train Orchestra (presenting the music of Moondog) and Either/Orchestra (playing their own music as well as another show dedicated to éthiopiques) highlights a specific interest in reimagining jazz while paying tribute to its global influences. Legendary bassist Pino Palladino and guitarist Blake Mills will be joined by Sam Gendel and Chris Dave for what is sure to be a memorable encounter. But I’m most excited to finally catch SML, riding high on the success of last year’s How You Been. The improvising quintet will be in residence playing three nights over the course of the festival. SML guitarist Gregory Uhlmann will also be presenting his fantastic new album Extra Stars, and if that isn’t enough to cinch Big Ears MVP status, Uhlmann will appear as part of his trio with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in a very different lane as a sideman for the atmospheric pop of Perfume Genius. And New York brass quartet The Westerlies—masters of blending jazz, roots, and chamber music—present the music of shapeshifting jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, channeling his signature warmth and curiosity through four voices that move with the precision of a string quartet and the easy rapport of a family band. And not to be missed, Roscoe Mitchell—founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and a guiding light of the AACM—joins forces with the visionary composer and drummer Tyshawn Sorey for a meeting across generations, two iconoclasts whose work embodies the same spirit of boundless exploration that has long defined this festival.
Ambient, Drone, & Electronic
This year’s festival has plenty to look forward to in this category, probably the music that’s closest to our hearts at ACL, where we especially appreciate evocative atmospheres, interesting textures, and rich soundscapes. Longtime ACL favorite Julianna Barwick, known for her ethereal, loop-based vocal soundscapes, will be presenting two sets, solo and in duo with harpist Mary Lattimore, who contributed to a song on Healing Is a Miracle–our #1 album of 2020. The duo of longtime friends recently joined forces again for a full-length, Tragic Magic, which we can’t wait to experience live! Lattimore will also be performing in duets with multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington and accordionist Walt McClements. Harpist Zeena Parkins and the percussionist William Winant collaborated on last year’s Modesty of the Magic Thing for Tzadik, a transportive work of layered drones and microtonal percussion, and will present its intricate textures and inventive interplay. Few wield the pedal steel guitar with such magisterial command as Chuck Johnson, whose meditative music revels in the kind of rich, glowing tones we cherish at ACL, sure to resonate beautifully within St. John’s Cathedral. Pan American—the long-running solo project of Labradford’s Mark Nelson—crafts minimalist, dub-inflected electronics, while Kramer, the legendary producer and Shimmy-Disc founder, has been a linchpin of the underground for decades. Together they released last year’s exquisite Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea, and at this year’s festival they’ll perform both together and in separate solo sets. And closing out Saturday night, Flying Lotus—beat scene pioneer, hip hop producer, anime soundtracker—is far from his ambient bag with his latest, the blistering 13-minute EP Big Mama, full of the restless, quixotic energy that’s defined his ever-unpredictable career.
Modern Composition
This year’s festival turns to composers and ensembles working within the classical tradition while pushing its boundaries—music that rewards structural daring and expressive curiosity, close to our hearts at ACL. Chief among them is the collective Wild Up, whose fervent performances have made them one of the most vital interpreters of contemporary music; they will take on Julius Eastman’s ecstatic Femenine, a hypnotic, groove-driven minimalist masterpiece, as well as Arthur Russell’s 24 to 24 Music, transforming the composer’s long‑unheard blend of minimalism and disco into a vibrant communal experience. They also present In the Wild at the Knoxville Museum of Art, a series of solo sets from their own ranks: saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, bassist Marlon Martinez, percussionist Max Jaffe, violinist Andrew Tholl, and others, each bringing a distinct vision to new music. Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw join forces in Ringdown, merging the quartet’s boundary‑pushing percussion with Shaw’s Pulitzer‑winning compositional sensibility. Polish pianist Hania Rani moves gracefully between contemporary classical, electronics, and minimalist gestures, appearing both in her solo electronic project Chilling Bambino and in more traditional mode alongside the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. And the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra performs Nels Cline’s Lovers, a lush work that blurs the lines between jazz and modern composition. Across these artists, what unites them is a willingness to operate between genres, which is exactly where some of today’s most thrilling music is to be found.
Avant-Garde & Experimental Rock
Big Ears has a soft spot for music that tears up the rulebook, including noise, improvisation, and the joyful wreckage of rock convention. Fred Frith, a foundational figure in experimental music since his days in Henry Cow, brings his restless spirit to his quartet with Simon Hanes, Max Jaffe, and Jordan Glenn, and his new band, Fremakajo, with drummer Jordan Glenn, saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, and accordionist Marié Abe, in what is sure to be a thrilling blend of composition and improv. Speaking of alt-kilter Bay Area groups, Deerhoof remains one of the most gleefully unclassifiable bands in any genre. Dirty Three returns with their signature instrumental roar of violin, guitar, and drums weaving between aching melody and blissful chaos. Guitarist Bill Orcutt appears twice: first in a solo set where his raw, unaccompanied playing pushes the instrument into uncharted territory; then with his new trio Orcutt Shelley Miller, with bassist Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire) and drummer Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth fame. Speaking of those noise rock legends, also appearing will be the ubiquitous Thurston Moore, who will join Shabaka Hutchings for a duo, a pairing that promises both deep listening and raw energy. These artists embody the ungovernable spirit that makes this corner of the festival so essential.
Alternative R&B, Hip-Hop, Pop, Spoken Word & Singer‑Songwriter
We tend to eschew lyric music at ACL, but only because that’s what most of the music press is already dedicated to, but we recognize that there are many artists who continue to work adventurously within the songform, crafting music that’s as much about texture and risk as it is about the hook. Tune‑Yards builds rhythmically inventive pop from loops and layers, while Perfume Genius channels raw emotion into sonically daring art‑pop. Saul Williams bridges poetry, industrial grit, and hip‑hop with unshakable urgency. Reggie Watts turns beatboxing and improvisational comedy into something gloriously unclassifiable. Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio) brings his distinctive voice and restless sensibility. Cleo Reed delivers a boundary‑pushing blend of R&B and experimental production. And Patrick Watson, with his full band, crafts lush, cinematic songs that hover between intimacy and grandeur, for two sets, showcasing their range, from last year’s stunning Uh Oh, to the more unexpected modular-synth driven instrumental set, Film Scores for No One. A great song can still be a playground for the unexpected.
Folk & Roots
Acoustic traditions and time‑honored forms provide the foundation here, though the artists in this cluster are hardly content to simply repeat the past. And because it wouldn’t be Tennessee without some bluegrass, stalwarts Trampled by Turtles are joined by Low’s Alan Sparhawk—a friendship forged over decades in their shared Duluth community, deepened in the wake of Mimi Parker’s passing, and now realized on 2025’s collaborative album. Welsh guitarist Gwenifer Raymond was inspired by Nirvana’s Unplugged Leadbelly cover, developing commands of the acoustic guitar and banjo with the technical fire of a punk drummer and the meditative depth of a sitar master, a synthesis she calls “Welsh Primitive” and one fully realized on last year’s haunting Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark (ACL Top 20 of 2025).Vocalist Julia Úlehla and her ensemble Dálava—named for the vanishing line where sky meets land—draw on folk songs transcribed by her great‑grandfather in Moravia, weaving centuries‑old melodies with experimental improvisation on their new album Understories. Robert Plant’s Saving Grace, featuring vocalist Suzi Dian, finds the rock icon fully immersed in the modal folk, Appalachian spirituals, and British balladry that have long shadowed his career. Kaoru Watanabe presents Bloodlines Interwoven, a multi‑artist project that draws on personal histories to forge new music, tracing connections between Japanese folk traditions and American roots across three concerts that weave flute, taiko, and storytelling into a shared celebration of cultural inheritance. Such meetings remind us that folk music has always been a living, restless tradition.
Other / Genre‑Blending Projects
If we’re being honest, most of the artists at Big Ears defy genre conventions, but this final grouping is where categories truly fall away and pure creative instinct takes over. Past podcast guest Maria Chávez brings her singular turntable practice to an improvising trio with Greg Saunier (Deerhoof’s explosive drummer) and Shahzad Ismaily, the multi‑talented multi-instrumentalist who has become something of a festival fixture. The trio debuted last year, but this will be their first performance outside the east coast. Deantoni Parks is a singular drummer, producer, and technologist whose collaborators range from John Cale to André 3000, presenting Technoself, a solo exploration of his own creation that merges percussion, electronics, and immersive multimedia into a singular vision. Shabaka brings his solo project to the festival, showcasing Of the Earth, a deeply personal album for choral flutes, voice, and self‑made beats channeling his Bajan heritage. And Harriet Tubman—the long‑running trio of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer J.T. Lewis—unites with vocalist and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow for Electrical Field of Love, a meeting of two borderless forces where psychedelic jazz‑rock meets Muldrow’s cosmic, shape‑shifting soul. Together, they prove that the most thrilling music often refuses to be named.
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a closer listen 