The Big Ears Festival returns to Knoxville, Tennessee, for a spate of performances in 2026 that span jazz and improvised musics in all their forms, set alongside rock and electronic players from across the world.
Ashley Capps, who founded the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, later started Big Ears in 2009. As it’s evolved, the range of art represented has expanded to include film and comedy in addition to exploratory music. Capps and veteran music writer Ann Powers chat about the 2026 lineup in a new podcast, part of the festival’s “Conversations About Music” podcast series (the earlier 2025 podcasts are still readily accessible at the same page).
“It really does grow organically, and it grows through the influence and interest of a lot of different people and in many ways,” Capps recently told a Knoxville media outlet. “My job has become just trying to carefully nurture it. To try to pick out the weeds when they need to be picked out, and to water the plants.”
As always, a few headliners will have truck with a general audience for the 2026 edition, which was recently announced, including David Byrne, Robert Plant and Flying Lotus. But there’s also a sizable jazz component to the programming, including vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, trumpeter Dave Douglas, bassist and Blue Note head Don Was, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, pianist Sullivan Fortner and dozens of others.
At the center of this year’s festival are a dozen performances connected to avant-garde composer John Zorn. The saxophonist is going to offer impromptu accompaniment for a selection of short films by Harry Smith, best known for compiling The Anthology of American Folk Music. He’ll also make appearances with his Masada Quartet and a duo with Laurie Anderson. But given Zorn’s prolific writing, a number of sets serve to highlight his composing, including a pair by vocalist Barbara Hannigan and one by Junction Trio.
Alongside all of Zorn’s outrageous musical statements are a slew of top-flight guitarists, spanning jazz, blues and folk: Pat Metheny is billed with his trio Side-Eye; Nels Cline will perform a few sets; John Scofield will be there; folkster Cleo Reed, fingerstyle player Gwenifer Raymond and Gary Lucas also will make appearances.
A fair number of avant- and rock-focused acts are slotted into the proceedings, too. Surrealist Charlemagne Palestine is set to perform, as are experimentalists Lucrecia Dalt and Nate Mercereau, and rock acts Deerhoof and Dirty Three.
Ticket info here. For a full lineup of the March 26 through 29 performances, visit the Big Ears website.