Q&A / ASHLEY CAPPS, Big Ears organizer: Cutting-edge musicians fill program for Knoxville fest

If you’re looking for European cool and American innovation in one package, Big Ears is for you.

A new musical offering in Knoxville, just about 3 1/2 hours from downtown Atlanta, the Big Ears Festival will host two of America’s most respected and well-known contemporary composers (Philip Glass and Pauline Oliveros, both now in their 70s), a critically revered Austrian electronic musician/composer (Fennesz), underground cabaret sensation Antony and the Johnsons, innovative trumpeter Jon Hassell and many more cutting-edge musical explorers.

The festival, taking place Friday through Feb. 8, was put together by Ashley Capps, co-founder of the successful Manchester, Tenn.-based Bonnaroo. We asked Capps what inspired this very left-field musical gathering, how it came together and why it landed in Knoxville.

Q: What prompted you to put this festival together?

A: No. 1, a personal passion and interest in this cutting-edge music. These are artists whose work I’ve personally admired for many, many years. I’ve looked at other events in Europe, and even Bonnaroo emerged from looking at the European festival landscape and saying “why not here?” Europe has all these huge rock festivals, but they’ve also got these more niche festivals that are fascinating in terms of the types of music that they bring together. And they take place outside of the accepted cultural centers. They’re like immersive, getaway weekend types of experiences. And in many ways we’re kind of modeled after that.

Q: Why Knoxville?

A: We’re [Capps’ AC Entertainment] based in Knoxville, so it’s our hometown. But we also operate and manage these two absolutely fabulous historic theaters that are a block and a half from each other. We produce events in many other venues that are also a short walk from one another in downtown. It was the perfect combination of things.

Q: Was there ever a temptation to put it closer to a bigger city?

A: I’ve certainly thought about taking this concept to other places. I’m not determined that it always needs to happen here. Rather than thinking about doing it in a big city, I’m more interested in doing it in the right city. I think that a situation where you have everyone coming together for a shared common purpose with as few distractions as possible —- and where people aren’t having to take a taxi for 30 minutes or rent a car or do all the other things you might have to do to get from one venue to the other —- is really important.

Q: Do you think it might provide a boost for your city?

A: We love Knoxville. We love living here. Knoxville’s undergone quite a renaissance in the last few years. It’s certainly one of the nice byproducts of doing the event. It’s going to be fun to turn people on to our town.

Q: Do you expect that people will travel long distance to come to the festival?

A: A lot of our ticket sales are coming from outside the region, even not just outside of Knoxville. Many of these artists are not artists you get to see readily outside of large cities. And in some cases, here in the United States, not even then. Fennesz and Jon Hassell I don’t believe have performed in the United States in years.

Q: Were you worried about doing a fest like this with the economy like this.

A: That’s definitely a challenge. At the same time, I’m a believer that you just have to keep going. We’ve tried to structure this so that it doesn’t require a lot of people to be successful. The largest theater that we’re using is the Bijou, and it holds 750 people. Taking the economy in mind, we’ve tried to scale the event so that we need a few hundred people to be successful and not thousands.

Q: Who are you most looking forward to seeing?

A: There’s so much that I’m looking forward to. I just saw Jon Hassell performing in Norway at this festival at the beginning of September. I had never seen his group play, and it was just stunning, musically and visually. I’ve never had the opportunity to see Fennesz, and his latest record [“Black Sea”] is just beautiful. Antony and the Johnsons, Philip Glass. The Necks [an improvisational Australian trio] are one of my favorite groups of all time, and I’ve never had an opportunity to see them live. It just keeps on going. Pauline Oliveros. I’m going to be like a kid in a candy store with this one.

IF YOU GO

Big Ears Festival. With Philip Glass, Pauline Oliveros, Antony and the Johnsons, Jon Hassell, Michael Gira, Negativland, the Necks, Dan Deacon, Matmos, San Agustin, the Shaking Ray Levis, Larkin Grimm, Ned Rothenberg and more. Feb. 6-8. Multiple venues in Knoxville, Tenn. Tickets available at 865-684-1200, Ext. 2 , or www.bigearsfestival.com

The Inner Ear Pass offers admission to all festival concerts (subject to available capacity) for $195. Outer Ear Passes include admission to most festival concerts (excluding only Philip Glass, Antony and the Johnsons, and the festival finale featuring Michael Gira and Fennesz with Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous and Scott Minor) for $100.