BIG EARS 2020 CONTINUES TO EXPAND LINEUP

In addition to a performance with her legendary band, Patti Smith will present her beautiful program Words and Music, an intimate performance that includes poetry and readings from her acclaimed memoirs Just Kids, M Train, and Year of the Monkey, with acoustic performances spanning her career.

John Paul Jones’ boundless musical creativity has defined his remarkable career – evident in his early pre-Zeppelin studio arrangements for British pop stars and, of course, in the continual expansion of Led Zeppelin’s musical palette (remember those dazzling epic solo keyboard showcases during live performances of “No Quarter?”).  Big Ears will offer the rare opportunity to experience John Paul Jones’ fertile, musical imagination as it unfolds – grand piano, mandolin and electronics, in an improvised solo performance responding only to the sounds and textures that emerge.

As if the world premiere performance of Memory Gamewith Bang On A Can All-Stars wasn’t enough, Meredith Monk will introduce another first at Big Ears:   an intimate duo with composer John Hollenbeck that will use voice and percussion to dovetail and dance to present new work and new interpretations from Monk’s canon to illuminate one another in what is sure to be a very special performance.

Bang On A Can All-Stars themselves will offer a second program, revisiting highlights of their 1990s recording Renegade Heaven, with a twist or two.  Works by Julius Eastman and Ornette Coleman, along with compositions by Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, will be performed.

One of the world’s most acclaimed classical artists, cellist Anja Lechner embraces a vast spectrum of music, from the deep classical tradition to championing some of our finest contemporary composers and collaborating and improvising with others across cultures and traditions.  She is at the heart of several of ECM’s most treasured recordings, including Ojos Negroswith Argentine bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi; her interpretations of Gurdjieff – Chants, Hymns, and Dances– with Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos; recordings with Francois Couturier and the Tarkovsky Quartet; and recordings of Franz Schubert, Tigran Mansurian and Valentin Silvestrov, among many others. In her solo performance at Big Ears, you can anticipate J. S. Bach, Silvestrov, and perhaps more.

There’s an ancient, timeless beauty in the sound of the lyra when Sokratis Sinopoulos performs.  It’s a sound that can stop you in your tracks (We know. It happened to us).  His most recent recording for ECM, Metamodal, a work of stunning and transcendent beauty. The lyra is a bowed instrument which dates back to the Byzantine era and Sokratis Sinopoulos has been widely hailed as a contemporary master of the instrument.

Caroline Shaw, composer, singer, violinist, Pulitzer Prize winner and 2019 Grammy nominee, will perform solo, complementing her collaboration with Sō Percussion in a separate performance.  She restlessly explores the connections between classical form, new ideas, and myriad regional traditions.

Jason Moran will perform a special solo piano concert, drawing deep inspiration from the world of art and our cultural history.  With the Knoxville Museum of Art exhibit Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin:  Through the Unusual Dooron view during the festival, Moran will present a program of music inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and these two brilliant and iconic artists.

Marc Ribot and Ches Smith will present Haitian Celebration: Minwi Sonnen, We All Break, Frantz Casseus.  Minwi Sonnen (Midnight Rings) is a traditional Haitian Rara band consisting of homemade PVC and Conch shell horns along with Haitian drums.  With nearly 170 years of combined experience, the group’s members have dedicated their lives to the musical traditions of Rara, Vodou, and Rasin (roots music).  Drummer and composer Ches Smith formed We All Break with his longtime teachers Daniel Brevil and Markus Schwartz and frequent collaborator pianist Matt Mitchell as a platform to explore the intersection of Haitian Vodou drumming and creative music. Marc Ribot will perform program solo guitar works (a ground breaking blend of Haitian folk material with classical guitar music) by his former teacher and mentor, the late Frantz Casseus, the father of Haitian classical guitar.

Chris Abrahams will return to Big Ears for two performances with The Necks, but will add a special solo performance on the pipe organ at one of our church venues in downtown Knoxville.

In addition to his Sons of Chipotle concert with John Paul Jones, cellist Anssi Karttunen will be performing a solo set, with a depth that reaches to early baroque music and all the classics of the repertoire.

Harpist Zeena Parkins will perform as one third of the fearless and formidable improvising trio MZM, but we’re happy to have enticed her to perform solo as well. Parkins new solo harp project Captiva, features a set of pieces for the acoustic concert pedal harp that were conceived at the Rauchenberg Residency on Captiva Island in Florida,  with choreographer Jennifer Monson.

Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr will perform a solo set.  Drawing from both psychedelic 60s folk rock as well as classic minimalism, Myhr’s solo performances have been described as waves breaking over the audience, gradually sweeping them into an ocean of sound.

Ingar Zach’s solo performances defy description.  An endlessly inventive drummer, he’ll be performing with two other percussionists, including the Necks’ Tony Buck, in Kim Myhr’s You | me ensemble at Big Ears, as well as staging one of his totally unique solo explorations into sound and space.