Thankfully, this year’s edition of the Big Ears Festival wasn’t just a one-off appeasement following a three-year hiatus, because Knoxville truly deserves an annual event to rival the 1982 “Wod Fir” and its fabulous collection of wigs.
We gave you the initial-initial skinny on next year’s edition (set to take place March 27-29) about a month ago, when it was announced that Kronos Quartet would be the Artists-in-Residence, succeeding the musical heavyweights of previous editions, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Now it’s time to provide some meat to Kronos’ bun overlordship, as Big Ears has just revealed the 2015 edition’s fantastic initial lineup. It includes: Swans, Grouper, Ben Frost, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, tUnE-yArDs, Amen Dunes, Holly Herndon, Clark, Laurie Anderson performing her collaboration with Kronos, “Landfall,” and more that you can check out in full on the Big Ears website.
But to mitigate the risk of you projectile spewing food out of sheer delight and surprise, let’s eaaasse into the fact of Max Richter… a performance from the Max Richter Chamber Ensemble, plus a performance of Richter’s recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Then there’s Demdike Stare re-scoring Häxan, a Scandinavian silent film about witchcraft from 1922, and it’s hard to imagine an increase in the festival’s overall intrigue.
Weekend passes go on sale this Friday, November 14 at 12 PM EST. Prices will subsequently increase as punishment for you taking more than five minutes to confirm your interest in going. It really should be impulsive at this point.
• Big Ears Festival: http://bigearsfestival.com