MUSIC

Drone pioneers, country giants, Sephardic divas, heaps of Holst: welcome to 2012’s genre-straddling musical buffet.

Attempting to summarise a year in music before it starts is a little like running into your favourite record shop, closing your eyes, swinging your arms around and running out with whatever falls on the floor. Whilst reasonably confident we can rely on this current booty to keep us entertained – for at least the first few months of 2012 – it’s going to take more than one over-excited smash and grab before we switch our diary pencil for a pen.

ROCK

Bristol bands Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains and Phantom Limb (pictured above) both have albums out in the first couple of months, and play The Motorcycle Showroom (27 Jan) and The Fleece (16 Feb) respectively. This does bring about arguably the most distressing clash of the year so far, with Portland/Washington’s Wild Flag also taking to the stage on 27 Jan at The Thekla (if their recent London/ATP performances are anything to go by, the Venue rock desk’s money is on this being one of the shows of the year). BrisFest’s campaign to return (of sorts…) to Ashton Court is, at time of print, still up in the air (10,000 pledgers needed) – with any luck, we’ll be experiencing its expanded version in mid-September. Continuing on the festival circuit, we’ve also got Dot to Dot on 26 May (Hurts/We Are Scientists headlined in 2011), the Harbour Festival in the late summer and we’re also looking forward to/hoping for the return of Simple Things in May, last year graced by Jamie XX, Clark and Bibio. For killer line-ups, you hardly have to turn to festivals though, with Arnolfini hosting drone pioneers Earth alongside Mount Eerie on 3 Mar. Other shows of note? At the O2 Academy, Bristol, there’s Brand New on 8 Feb, the NME Awards Tour featuring Justice (9 Feb) and Spiritualized (21 Mar). The Thekla have Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (4 Feb), First Aid Kit (29 Feb) and The War on Drugs (1 Mar). Summer Camp play The Louisiana on 12 Mar, The Misfits celebrate their 35th anniversary at The Fleece on 6 Feb, Fink plays Bath’s Komedia on 15 Feb and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins brings his spoken word performance ‘The Long Count’ to St George’s Bristol on 17 Jan. See what we mean about the pencil? (Leah Pritchard)

ROOTS

On the roots side of things, Bristol Folk Festival will occupy Colston Hall from 5-7 May, with acts such as Show of Hands, Miranda Sykes and Cara Dillon already confirmed. Spend an evening with Kurt Wagner’s country giants Lambchop at The Fleece on 7 Mar – Tennessee’s Cortney Tidwell in tow – or Joan Baez (pictured) at Colston Hall on 8 Mar. Jelli Records’ Acoustic Festival takes to St George’s Bristol on 13-15 Jan (see Big Gig on p.49) and Americana legend Tom Russell plays The Thunderbolt on 12 Jan. St Bonaventure’s, as always, has an impressive array of country musicians already booked in for the coming months, with Lindi Ortega (24 Jan), Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers (Jan 31) and Sarah Jarosz (29 May). On the Bath side of things, Bristol’s acoustic troubadour The Lonely Tourist plays The Curfew (13 Jan), singer/songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich plays Komedia (21 Feb) and emotional folkster Kirsty McGee plays Chapel Arts Centre (8 Mar). (Leah Pritchard)

JAZZ/WORLD

If 2012 lives up to the promise of the first few months, then it’ll be a very good jazz year indeed. After the mischievous Guillemots side-project Gannets (3 Feb), St George’s, Bristol has a splendid international jazz season, including piano stars Tord Gustavsen (22 Mar), Neil Cowley (appearing with a string section, 26 Apr) and Dave Stapleton’s exciting project with saxman Marius Neset (pictured) and the Brodowski Quartet (3 May). Andy Sheppard will bring Trio Libero, his latest ECM recording band (23 Mar), and Norwegian avant-trumpeter Arve Henriksen’s collaboration with astounding early music singers Trio Mediaeval (24 May) is also expected to be a treat. Top local jazz outfits will be playing free after-show gigs for many of the dates. Not to be outdone, Colston Hall’s collaboration with promoter Ian Storror will bring Damon Brown’s international Ugetsu (featuring pianist Yutaka Shinna, 6 Mar) and the deceptively blandly-named New York Standards Quartet (10 Apr), but the clear-your-diaries date has to be the 27 Mar double bill of US trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire’s group and Robert Mitchell’s 3io. Akinmusire is one of the hottest names in the US jazz world right now. Mr Storror’s also planning to start regular jazz nights at the Hen & Chicken in Southville. Over in Bath there’s a string of vocal talents at Chapel Arts, with Kate Dimbleby’s Dory Previn tribute (24 Feb), Janet Siedel’s Doris Day show (13 Apr) and mighty jazz-blues powerhouse Liane Carroll (23 Mar) among the highlights.

There’s a World Music treat at the same venue when Sephardic diva Mor Kabasi brings her tempestuous Ladino songs (24 Mar), with more Jewish-rooted folk-jazz fun from Moishe’s Bagel at Colston Hall (16 Feb). The hall is also showcasing Javanese stars of contemporary gamelan Sambasunda (9 Feb) and Iraqi oud virtuoso Khyam Allami (13 Apr). St George’s global favourites include Malian rocker Vieux Farke Toure (11 Feb), Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca (30 Mar) and cool new Brazilian singing sensation Ceu (18 Apr). And, finally, those lovely WOMAD people will be celebrating their 30th birthday with a bumper festival at Charlton Park (27-29 July) and another of their highly successful ‘Wild Nights’ at Bristol Zoo (30 June). (Tony Benjamin)

CLASSICAL

Anyone looking to musical theatre for the soundtrack to 2012 might flirt with ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ – or, if worst-case-scenario-inclined, the apocalypse now of ‘Gotterdammerung’. But opera seasons take years of planning, so sackcloth and ashes retreat before Elijah Moshinsky’s glowing production of ‘Beatrice and Benedict’ (partnered by ‘Figaro’ and ‘Traviata’) when WNO (pictured) comes calling (10-14 Apr) – and Figaro’s prequel, ‘The Barber of Seville’ (Opera Project, 15 June), is one of two operas at St George’s, the boy Mozart’s ‘Apollo’ gilding May. Iford (16 June-8 Aug) also braves the Bard with Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ at the heart of a programme full of Eastern promise (Mozart’s ‘Seraglio’) and oratorio reimagined as opera (Handel’s ‘Susanna’).

Orchestrally, the BSO is in heroic mode when Karabits tackles Strauss’s ‘Heldenleben’ (1 Mar), while Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia complement WNO’s ‘Beatrice’ with the ‘Symphonie fantastique’ (29 May), and the BSO teams up with a supersized Bristol Choral Society for the epic Te Deum (31 Mar). Elektrostatic, Bristol Ensemble’s dalliance with the new, relishes Reich’s New York Counterpoint and decamps for monthly meets at Arnolfini ahead of another Colston Hall festival in May. And up the hill at St George’s, Beethoven rolls over as the Goulds complete a piano trio cycle ahead of the Elias’s eagerly awaited quartet series. Paul Lewis’s Schubert odyssey continues apace (Winterreise with Mark Padmore on 13 Feb), the Aurora Orchestra returns with Strauss’s elegiac Metamorphosen (4 Mar), and a starry threesome including Steven Isserlis propose Beethoven’s lofty ‘Triple Concerto’ with the OAE (4 May). Towards year’s end, keep a weather eye out for Carolyn Sampson and The English Concert (2 Oct) and rare Britten from The Gabrieli Consort (12 Dec). To Bath’s deluxe Nov Mozartfest a small but perfectly formed sibling Bachfest is added in Feb, while the flagship Music Festival (30 May-10 Jun) bids farewell to Joanna MacGregor with ‘The Magic Flute’, Vivaldi’s ‘L’Olimpiade’ and an 80th birthday focus on Hugh Wood. Cheltenham Festival (4-15 July) also has ‘Olympian’ aspirations, a Debussian digression, and heaps of Holst. Who says 2012 beggars can’t be choosers – and spoilt for choice at that! (Paul Riley)

Copyright Leah Pritchard, Tony Benjamin and Paul Riley 2012