12 Points!
Stavanger, 11–14 Feb – Dublin’s 12 Points! Festival, which each year brings together twelve exciting new jazz acts from Europe, hits the road in 2010, and from now on it will alternate between Dublin and other centres around Europe. The first stop is Stavanger in western Norway, in a joint production between Stavanger Jazz Forum, Vestnorsk Jazz Senter from Norway and Improvised Music Company from Ireland. Over four nights, twelve young bands will perform: XY Band (Austria), Mark McKnight Trio (Ireland), Georgi Šareski Quartet (Macedonia), Jazzanitza (Bulgaria/Romania), Mari Kvein Brunvoll  (Norway), Donkey Monkey (France), Naoko Sakato Trio (Sweden), Quartester (Finland), Eve Beuvens Trio (Belgium), Knalpot (Holland), Trio VD (UK) and Pablo Held Trio (Germany). www.improvisedmusic.ie / www.folken.no

Una Santa Oscura
Dublin, 4–6 Mar – A new stage work by Ian Wilson, Una Santa Oscura, is inspired by the life of the twelfth-century abbess and mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Directed by Tom Creed and performed by violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan (along with an electronic component), it is what the composer calls ‘acoustic theatre’, in which an instrumentalist takes the sole weight of the dramatic narrative; there is no text. www.ianwilson.org.uk

Utopia
Berlin, 19–28 Mar – We have lost courage; reactions now  dominate actions; idealism is dead;  utopia is taboo. So  says Matthias Osterwold, Artistic Director of Berlin’s MaerzMusik festival. This year’s festival is based on the premise that there is an appetite for change in society, and a belief that art can be the laboratory for new thought. www.maerzmusik.de

SXSW Interactive
Austin, 12–16 Mar – Five days of presentations, interviews and lectures – all about aspects of the music industry – are taking place as part of the South by South West festival in Texas. Keynote speakers at SXSW Interactive include Daniel Ek of Spotify,  Evan Williams of Twitter, Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab and Valerie Casey of the Designers Accord. www.sxsw.com

For the Afterlife
New York, 17 Mar – The Dan Joseph Ensemble is defined by an unusual instrumentation of hammer dulcimer, harpsichord, strings, winds and percussion. Here, at Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room, they end a three-year hiatus. Joined by baritone Thomas Buckner, they premiere Joseph’s new forty-minute work, Tonalization (for the afterlife): ‘For me tone also implies an inner voice, a resonance of the spirit, and it is the search for this special tone – both in the music and in the self – that is at the core of this work.’ www.danjoseph.org

Governing Culture
Ségou, 3–7 Feb – The Malian Festival sur le Niger, a ‘world culture event’, is now its sixth year. The festival combines art exhibitions, discussions, a craft fair, storytelling, workshops and a special forum to the theme ‘Culture and Governance’. A two-tiered pricing structure is in operation, with reduced prices for Malians. www.festivalsegou.org

ich ruf zu dir
Dublin, 2–3 Apr – Optimism is the essential theme of the Ergodos Festival this year, a two-day event incorporating music and film. One source of this optimism is a sense of nostalgia, tradition and rebirth: for the first concert – entitled Another Generation Cometh, the organisers have asked four living composers to make an arrangement of J.S. Bach’s chorale harmonisation of ‘Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ’ for the resident ensemble.  The arrangements will be performed throughout the concert as preludes to original works. www.ergodos.ie