Following this year's Big Ears Festival, in which more than 15 Nonesuch artists past, present, and future performed as part of the label's 60th anniversary celebrations, Big Ears has just announced the lineup for its 2025 running to take place in venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 27–30, 2025, including several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, like Ambrose Akinmusire, Jeff Parker, and Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly.

Trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire, who was named Trumpeter of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, and whose Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring Bill Frisell (who is also playing at Big Ears 2025) and Herlin Riley, made the Jazz Albums of the Year list, has two sets at Big Ears: a solo show and a performance of his new piece Honey From A Winter’s Stone, joining rapper/producer Kokayi with longtime collaborators Sam Harris on piano and Justin Brown on drums. "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023," DownBeat says of Owl Song. "This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time."

Guitarist and composer Jeff Parker also has two sets at Big Ears, one as a member of the famed quintet Tortoise, with its nods to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism and a sound distinctly its own, and with his free improv group ETA IVtet: drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, alto saxophonist Josh Johnson. "A beautifully freewheeling, guitar-driven expression of joy and musical exploration," Guitar World says of Parker's most recent International Anthem / Nonesuch Records release, the 2021 solo guitar album Forfolks, "a masterpiece of improvisation." "Beautiful, resonant, and focused," says the Quietus. "This matches anything he’s produced during his career so far."

Bolivian-born singer and multimedia performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly bring music from MESTIZX, their debut full-length album as co-composers, arrangers, and musicians—another International Anthem / Nonesuch Records release—to Big Ears. Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based duo dove deep into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create this deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest, released this past May.

The 2025 Big Ears Festival also features music by Jonny Greenwood, Tigran Hamasyan, Philip Glass, Taj Mahal, and ANOHNI, among others. For all the details and tickets, visit bigearsfestival.com.