The Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee provides a listening experience unlike any other in America. At the 2017 edition, Norwegian drone musician Deathprod blasted deafening noise inside a 1920s theater listed in the National Register of Historic Places, while the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra played Bach on the floor of a rock club. Cell phones got alerts that a performance by Chinese guzheng player Wu Fei was at capacity, while Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy could be found squalling to a small audience in an improv noise band. A hundred volunteers rubbed rocks and spilled seeds for a hushed percussion piece in the Knoxville Museum of Art, while cellist Oliver Coates shredded Iannis Xenakis in a sweatshirt.