The Big Ears Festival kicked off yesterday in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a set by Mary Halvorson and her band Canis Major, and continues at venues throughout downtown through Sunday, with performances by and conversations with Laurie Anderson, Jeff Parker, Robert Plant, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Chris Thile, Yasmin Williams, and others.

Guitarist Yasmin Williams is in conversation with Nate Chinen and fellow musicians Julian Lage and Sullivan Fortner at Blue Note Lounge at 9:30am this morning for Roots and Branches, exploring the foundations and evolving pathways of today’s music communities. Williams joins Liz Pelly and John Schafer in conversation with Patrick Shiroishi and Bob Holmes for Curious Listening in the Streaming Era at Postmodern Sound Exchange at 12:30pm on Saturday. Williams and fellow guitarist William Tyler perform a duo set at Knoxville Museum of Art at 7:30pm on Saturday. Williams’ Nonesuch debut album, Acadia, was released in 2024.

Laurie Anderson presents her new multimedia project What War Is This? What Time Is It? at Tennessee Theatre at 3:30pm this afternoon. Anderson joins John Zorn for a performance at Bijou Theatre at 7:30pm Saturday and Eyvind Kang and Martha Mooke at Postmodern Sound Exchange on Saturday at 10:00pm. She is at Postmodern Sound Exchange that morning for an album signing at 10:30am. Anderson returns to the stage on Sunday with Sexmob for a performance of Republic of Love at Knoxville Civic Auditorium at 7:30pm. Anderson and Sexmob’s new live album, Let X=X, is due May 8 on Nonesuch.

Guitartist Jeff Parker's Expansion Trio performs at Mill & Mine at 3:30pm this afternoon. Parker can also be heard on Flea’s brand-new solo album, Honora, out today.

Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion are joined by Ringdown (Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan), performing at Tennessee Theatre at 6:00pm tonight. They are at Postmodern Sound Exchange to sign records Saturday at 3:45pm. Shaw and Sō have collaborated on three Nonesuch album, including the GRAMMY-winning Rectangles and Circumstance, on which Ringdown is featured. Sō can also be heard on Ringdown’s debut album, Lady on the Bike. Sō has additional Big Ears performances, including Steve Reich's Drumming.

Guitarist Mary Halvorson is at Postmodern Sound Exchange today at 2pm to sign records and then joins Canis Major to perform a second Big Ears set at Tennessee Theatre at 2:30pm on Saturday. They then perform at 701 CCA Gallery in Columbia, South Carolina, on Sunday. Halvorson’s album Ghost Song topped the Francis Davis Jazz Poll for New Jazz Albums.

Cécile McLorin Salvant is at Postmodern Sound Exchange today at 2:30pm to sign records, then has two Big Ears sets: at The Point at 7:30pm tonight and Tennessee Theatre at 3:30pm on Sunday. Her latest album, Oh Snap, topped the Francis Davis Jazz Poll for Vocal Jazz Albums.

Robert Plant and Saving Grace perform at Tennessee Theatre at 8:15pm on Saturday before heading to Kentucky to perform at The Louisville Palace in Louisville on Sunday. Their debut album together, Saving Grace, was released last fall.

Mandolinist Chris Thile is in conversation with Nate Chinen and Tomeka Reid for Across the American Grain, discussing genre not as a rigid category, but as a living, evolving organism, at Blue Note Lounge at 9:30am on Sunday, before his solo show at Knoxville Civic Auditorium at 3:00pm. Thile's second volume of Bach sonatas and partitas was released in November.

Also among the artists performing at this year's Big Ears Festival are David Byrne, Sam Amidon, Carolina Chocolate Drops' Dom Flemons, Sam Gendel, Tom Skinner, Rob Mazurek, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Blind Boys of Alabama.

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And there's more great live music being made beyond Big Ears this weekend:

Trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire joins guitarist Bill Frisell for early and late sets at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room in New York City on Saturday for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Bill Frisell 75th Birthday Celebration. The celebration also features vocalist Petra Haden, percussionist Tim Angulo, and others. Akinmusire’s latest album, honey from a winter stone, made year-end-best lists of DownBeat, Jazzwise, Mojo, and more and was recently nominated for the Jazz FM Award for Album of the Year.

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Pianist Jeremy Denk joins Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for an all-Beethoven program at 92NY’s Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York City on Sunday. Denk performs Beethoven on his 2012 Nonesuch debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, and the 2019 collection c. 1300–c. 2000.

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Rhiannon Giddens and Silkroad Ensemble, of which she is artistic director, perform at Tilles Center Concert Hall in Brookville, New York, tonight and McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, on Saturday for their tour Sanctuary: Power, Resonance, and Ritual. The program explores music’s capacity to process loss and environmental change while rebuilding community through shared humanity. Giddens and Silkroad released the album American Railroad on Nonesuch in 2024. It is the culmination of four years of research, collaboration, and music-making, having brought Silkroad artists all across the US to uncover and uplift stories of those who built the transcontinental railroad and connecting railways across North America. You can get it and hear it here.

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Brad Mehldau and Christian McBride continue their European duo tour, performing at Prinzregententheater in Munich tonight, Besední dům in Brno-město, Czechia, on Saturday for JazzFestBrno, and NOSPR in Katowice, Poland, on Sunday. Mehldau and McBride can be heard together with saxophonist Joshua Redman and drummer Brian Blade on three albums: LongGone (2022), RoundAgain (2020), and MoodSwing.

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Antwerp Symphony orchestra performs The Blue Hour—a song cycle composed by Shara Nova, Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider—at Queen Elisabeth Hall in Antwerp, Belgium, on Saturday. Sinder’s Mass for the Endangered is performed by The Elora Singers at St. Matthew's Centre in Kitchener, Ontario, on Sunday. Snider’s new album with Metropolis Ensemble and Andrew Cyr, Forward Into Light, was released last month.