Big Ears Festival has announced the lineup for its 2026 edition, taking place in venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 26–29, 2026, including several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, like Laurie Anderson, Mary Halvorson, Robert Plant, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion with Ringdown.

Laurie Anderson returns to Big Ears to perform The State of Love and joins the band Sexmob to perform X2, a survey of a half century of her music, and John Zorn for a duo set. Her latest album, Amelia, comprises twenty-two tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson, who Pitchfork says, “sees the future, but she starts by paying attention,” wrote the music and lyrics. Amelia was released in 2024, the same year Laurie Anderson received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson, whose new album, About Ghosts, was released in June, makes a return trip to Big Ears, this time joined by her quartet Canis Major: trumpeter Dave Adewumi, bassist Henry Fraser, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Halvorson was once again named Guitarist of the Year in the 2025 DownBeat Critics Poll, and her group Amaryllis, the sextet behind About Ghosts, which also includes Fujiwara, was named Group of the Year.

Robert Plant and Saving Grace—vocalist Suzi Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, cellist Barney Morse-Brown—are making their Big Ears debut. Their debut album, Saving Grace, due September 26, is what he calls “a song book of the lost and found." Its genesis was during lockdown, when Plant’s customary wandering was all but forbidden. It was in the English countryside that he connected closely to this diverse group of musicianswho had a shared lean towards his corners of evocative song. Produced by Plant and the band and recorded over six years in the Cotswolds and on the Welsh Borders, Saving Grace features songs by Memphis Minnie, Bob Mosley (Moby Grape), Blind Willie Johnson, The Low Anthem, Martha Scanlan, Sarah Siskind, and Low.

Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose new album, Oh Snap, is out on Friday, September 19, returns to Big Ears after a 2023 set. Salvant was once again named Female Vocalist of the Year in the 2025 DownBeat Critics Poll. Oh Snap comprises 12 very personal songs by the singer/composer (plus a cover of a verse from the Commodores’ 1977 hit “Brick House”) mostly recorded outside of a traditional studio environment. The songs showcase her genre-spanning tastes and influences from her 1990s childhood in Miami—from boy bands to grunge to classical to folk—and include party tracks with beats, samba grooves, and quiet folk songs.

Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion, and Ringdown all return to Big Ears to perform together. Shaw and Sō's latest album together, 2024's Rectangles and Circumstance, won the GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance and features Ringdown (Shaw's duo with Danni Lee Parpan) on the track "Slow Motion." Ringdown performed songs from their own debut album, Lady on the Bike, at Big Ears in 2024.

The 2025 Big Ears Festival also features music by old friends David Byrne, Carolina Chocolate Drops' Dom Flemons, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Orchestra Baobab, Pat Metheny, and Tom Skinner, among others. For all the details and tickets, visit bigearsfestival.com.