No Idea Festival

About this event

Celebrating our 20th edition, No Idea Festival 2026 curation spirals out from our opening night featuring artists from Detroit, Houston, and Norway. Work presented highlights novel intersections on the peripheries of free jazz, composition, free improvisation, and hip hop. To highlight artists' working methods, musicians move through No Idea’s format of established groups, emerging collaborations, and festival curated first-meetings.

Friday, November 20 KMFA Event Space (41 Navasota Street, Austin, TX 78702) 7:30pm doors; 8pm music

Set 1: Spite of Darkness (Mike Khoury, Ben Hall, Indira Edwards, Ali Allan Colding — Detroit) Set 2: Danny Kamins, solo (Houston) Set 3: JAWWAAD's Myth & Logic (Houston/Norway)

Saturday, November 21 (daytime) Alienated Majesty Books (613 W 29th St. 78705) 2pm-4pm

Performance + Conversation Detroit-based Palestinian American composer, performer, organizer Mike Khoury in conversation with Robin Williams (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at University of Michigan Museum of Art).

The conversation is book-ended by two sets of music by Khoury and special guest artists.

Saturday, October 25 (evening)

Alienated Majesty Books (613 W 29th St. 78705) 7:30pm doors; 8pm music

Set 1: Alex Coke / Ali Allan Colding / Matthew Frerck (festival-curated first-time meeting) Set 2: Chicago tuba player Beth McDonald, solo Set 3: Ben Hall / Indira Edwards / Juan García (emerging collaboration)

Sunday, October 26 (daytime) Let's Meet for Coffee at Leon's An afternoon of first-time collaborations Leon & Stella's (1017-A West Milton Street, 78704) 1pm - 4pm