Big Ears Festival 2025 Lineup Has ANOHNI & The Johnsons, Waxahatchee, Yo La Tengo With Sun Ra Arkestra, & Much More

The Big Ears Festival, Knoxville’s annual marathon of experimental and adventurous music, has just unveiled its lineup for next year.The festival goes down 3/27-30 at venues around Knoxville, and it once again features an excellently curated lineup of indie rock, jazz, and avant garde music, as well as plenty of stuff that blurs lines between those categories.

The once-again-active ANOHNI And The Johnsons, who played the initial Big Ears fest in 2009, return as headliners this year.The bill also includes acts like Waxahatchee, Jessica Pratt, Explosions In The Sky, Esperanza Spalding, Arooj Aftab, Alan Sparhawk, Cassandra Jenkins, clipping., Rufus Wainwright, Nels Cline, Taj Mahal, Steve Roach, Vijay Iyer, Michael Hurley, Tortoise, Beak>, Tindersticks, Carlos Niño & Friends, múm, Julia Holter, Still House Plants, Helado Negro, Mary Lattimore, ML Buch, Chanel Beads, and Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz.

As always, Big Ears will feature some special events that aren’t happening anywhere else.Yo La Tengo and Sun Ra Arkestra will perform, both together and separately.

Jonny Greenwood’s eight-hour pipe organ piece 133 Years Of Reverb will have its North American premiere, performed by James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy.The Philip Glass Ensemble will perform a 50th-anniversary version of Glass’ 1974 piece Music In Twelve Parts.

Tyshawn Sorey and Wadada Leo Smith, respectively a recent Pulitzer winner and finalist, both have multiple programs on deck.Dance innovator King Britt will give another of his Blacktronika series, featuring Antipop Consortium and Indian vocalist Asha Puthli.

Béla Fleck will play in his trio with Edmar Castañeda and Antonio Sánchez, Bill Frisell will debut a new sextet, and Meshell Ndegeocello will perform No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin.There’s a lot of other stuff on the bill, too.

You’ll find all the details here....