Knoxville’s most acclaimed festival returns with beautiful mixture of alumni, legendary acts and up and comers
Big Ears will return with a bang in 2022.
The world-renowned Knoxville music and arts festival’s 2022 line-up will include music legends John Zorn, Kim Gordon, Sparks, Annette Peacock, Terry Allen, Animal Collective and many, many more.
The festival was postponed in 2020 at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and skipped 2021 after initial plans to have the festival later in the year. Founded in 2009, the event has been lauded by the New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker and many other publications as one of the premier music festivals in the world. The event brings cutting-edge artists and legends from a wide variety of genres. The festival has often been the only place artists have performed outside of world’s largest cities and in some cases, Big Ears has been the only place works have been performed in North America. Artists regularly perform and collaborate in combinations unique to the festival. The 2022 festival will be held March 24-27 and will, as usual, incorporate venues all over downtown Knoxville, including the historic Tennessee and Bijou theaters. Overall, more than 100 concerts and music events will be presented.
A few of the returning artists are Bill Frisell, Mark Ribot, Meredith Monk, Kronos Quartet, Gyan Riley, Theo Bleckmann and Bang On a Can All-Stars.
Cult-favorite rock band Sparks has recently enjoyed a new appreciation due to the acclaimed documentary on the band “The Sparks Brothers” and the brothers’ musical “Annette,” which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Other rock acts include Kim Gordon (formerly of Sonic Youth), Danish rock act Efterklang, and the always difficult to classify Animal Collective.
Singer-songwriter and visual and installation artist Terry Allen will be making his first appearance at the festival. Allen is critically acclaimed for his albums, including the classic “Lubbock (On Everything)” and his most recent “Just Like Moby Dick.” Over the past several years, there has been a collective of Lubbock musicians relocate to Knoxville, which could make this particular set even more special for Allen and attendees alike.
Other acclaimed singer-songwriters announced for the festival include Bill Callahan, Joe Henry, Cassandra Jenkins, Anais Mitchell and Andy Shauf.
The festival will celebrate the music and New Orleans and the Cuban and Haitian influences on its music with performances by The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, RAM, Perdito Martinez, Leyla McCalla and Dafnis Prieto
As at previous Big Ears Festivals, patrons will have the chance to take a deep dive into a featured artist’s work. At the 2022 Big Ears, John Zorn will present eight concerts featuring some of his most recent work and include a guitar trio with Bill Frisell, Julian Lange and Gyan Riley; songs written with Jesse Harris for Petra Haden; and a piece written for Hammond B-3 organ which will feature John Medeski and the New Masada Quartet.
Big Ears 2022 jazz artists will include established greats Andrew Cyrille, Jason Moran, and Ron Miles, along with emerging artists Ambrose Akinmusire, Kris Davis, and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Jaimie Branch, Damon Locks, Angel Bat Dawid, Sons of Kemet, Nubya Garcia and more.
Pioneering vocalist and electronic artist Annette Peacock will also perform a rare solo concert. Kronos Quartet will present a collaboration with filmmaker Sam Green titled “A Thousand Thoughts” and Meredith Monk will combine talents with Bang On a Can All-Stars for a world premiere performance of “Memory Games.”
Oak Ridge native Ellen Reid, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her opera “ p r i s m,” and whose “Soundwalk” is currently being presented at Ijams Nature Center, will premiere her work Soundwalk Ensemble. Fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw will perform a collaboration with So Percussion.
To put a bow on the lineup’s diversity, Big Ears includes some of the most innovative names in the R&B and indie rock worlds. Moses Sumney, Arooj Aftab, Lido Pimienta, Yves Tumor, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Alabaster DePlume and Dawn Richard will all be making the trek to Knoxville next spring and as previously mentioned, it will be the first time that many of these acts have played in this market.
Weekend festival passes for Big Ears 2022 will be available at noon, Thursday, Sept. 16, at BigEarsFestival.org. Prices and more information will be announced soon. Here’s the full initial lineup.
