During the weekend of Big Ears, music is everywhere in Knoxville, Tennessee. Market Square, a central hub in the vibrant college town, is home to spontaneous jams, like an elderly fiddler or an impromptu set from a local band. Just down the street, within the festival’s official venues, you might find creative music star Wadada Leo Smith premiering new work, sets by iconic artists like Lonnie Holley, Michael Hurley, and Tortoise, or a critically acclaimed experimental songwriter like Mabe Fratti.
It is a staggering amount of music to take in, but the thousands of us who descended upon the city for the weekend of March 27 – 31, 2025, decided to traipse around to catch as much of it as we could. The path I carved for myself — just one of many possible — took me through a whirlwind of songwriting, drone, and jazz and served as a reminder that experimental music is a state of mind, an open approach rather than a set prescription.
Like its namesake, the festival is about opening your ears to whatever each musical experience may hold. Big Ears has been presenting this eclectic array of music in its annual festival since 2009; this year’s event seemed even more jam-packed with music, ideas, and experiences than past years, and every set I saw was well-attended. The festival is an all-out celebration of what it means to listen to this kind of music right now, an exhilarating display of just how expansive the phrase “experimental music” can be.
Songwriting was a primary focus, with many artists exploring how to extend, shape, and tinker with form. On Thursday evening, Danish musician Astrid Sonne’s music grew from hazy and shimmering strings into dreamy songs about love, heartbreak, and big decisions; it was far from the weekend’s most compelling sets, but offered a lens into blending electroacoustic palettes with pop lyricism. Saturday brought Darian Donovan Thomas’ ambient Safe Space, weaving his arpeggiated violin with Phong Tran’s floating synths, Andrew Pitcher’s prickly guitar, and Kalia Vandever’s lilting trombone into both compact songs and sprawling meditations that burst into rich, layered melodies.
Also on Saturday was more eaze, the solo project of New York-based multi-instrumentalist and composer mari rubio. Joined by violinist Zachary Paul and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg, the trio mixed autotuned vocals with country ballads and free improvisation, blending the grit of electric violin with the lilt of pedal steel and hum of electric guitar riffs. Then, Sunday afternoon, cellist and singer-songwriter Mabe Fratti united the sound of longform pop, fiery rock, and the ecstasy of improvisation. All these sets approached experimentation through deconstruction and recontextualization, taking instruments often associated with a specific genre and using them in different ways that pushed the boundaries of form, showing that these instruments can exist in many contexts.
Drone was also presented in many different forms throughout the weekend. Jonny Greenwood’s eight-hour organ piece 133 Years of Reverb filled St. John’s Cathedral from 2pm-10pm on Saturday afternoon. Performed by James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy, the piece — which was a peak of the weekend — blossomed from stormy dissonance into consonance, leaving a sense of euphoria in its wake. The church’s organ vibrated as each chord expanded; people milled about, stopping to hold the handles of the pews or feel the sound of each note in their feet. It was a moment not of respite but of resonance with each other and the sacredness of the space.
In the same church just a night before was Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), an hourlong mysterious piece that filled the dim-lit room with eerie waves, a slow unraveling and intertwining of melodic phrases. The venue also hosted Wadada Leo Smith’s contemplative pieces with RedKoral, which paired his ruminative trumpet with the ensemble’s swarming strings. Elsewhere, drone and ambient music became interdisciplinary, with Helado Negro’s Star Scores matching a flashing film with pulsating soundscapes; later in the day, Macie Stewart projected peaceful shots of blue on the screen behind her as her ensemble played drifting compositions. Though many of these experiences were soft, the delirious 12:30am set by Austin drone rock band Water Damage offered a moment of wildness. Their set grew into an entangled mass from a single riff played in unison on loop until all the smoke had been extinguished. It was only 45-minutes, but the sheer mass and excitement of the unruly 13-piece group could have gone all night.
Jazz has always played a significant role at Big Ears and in the creative music scene writ large, and a highlight of the weekend was two performances by أحمد [Ahmed], the UK-based quartet of pianist Pat Thomas, alto saxophonist Seymour Wright, bassist Joel Grip, and drummer Antonin Gerbal, whose free improvisations reinterpret the music of bassist and oud player Ahmed Abdul-Malik, an important figure in the mid-20th century who brought ideas from Middle Eastern and North African music to his playing. Their sets were a perfect mix of chaos, skill, and rapture, reshaping Abdul-Malik’s compositions into fast-paced, frenzied yet crisp works. Though the ensemble’s sound is maximalist — made of squealing saxophone, nonstop bass and drums, and rolling piano — the parts are minimal, each a small lego building on top of the other. Their first performance was in lockstep, a true show of virtuosity at high speed; the second got a little looser as the audience cheered and chatted, letting the music’s energy move beyond form and into the moment.
Sunday evening’s performance by Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Lehman, and Vijay Iyer similarly brought pure sound and unabashed freedom. Sorey’s fluid drumming was a highlight, churning and pushing underneath Iyer’s rippling piano and Lehman’s brash saxophone and filling a crowded theater with kineticism. Immanuel Wilkins’ Blues Bloods, too, created a jolt of energy born from a deft blend of music history; the ensemble’s songs had a spiritual feeling to them, while gospel, free improv, and bebop faded in and out.
Ecstatic pulses colored so much of the weekend, from Darkside’s blissful electronics to the Sun Ra Arkestra’s characteristic futurism. The most memorable part of Big Ears was the way the music felt, the spirit that rippled throughout so many moments. We shared the love of music as something with boundless history and boundless possibility, harnessed and spit back in sounds unimaginable, surprising, and joyful at once.
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