12 Points 2018, September 5th - 8th: 4 nights of Jazz in Dublin City

September 5th - 8th 2018 saw the award-winning 12 Points festival return to its birthplace in Dublin, as it entered into its 12th incarnation since it began in 2007. With 12 acts and 47 delegates from 12 different European countries, this year’s festival had all the talent, ingenuity and verve of previous years, and then some!

12 emerging jazz acts from across Europe, hand-picked by IMC from a group of over 500 applicants, hit The Sugar Club, Leeson Street, wowing crowds at the intimate Dublin venue with original musical compositions and spell-binding performances. Diverse, creative and fearless were the words on everyone’s lips as they left the sold-out venue each night, many of whom would return the following evening, so attending each act over the 4-night run.

The daytime ‘Jazz Futures’ conferences, (‘Why Is Gender Still a Thing?’ and ‘Revolution in Evolution’) were held in the National Concert Hall on the Friday and Saturday of the event, and stimulated thoughtful debate and discussion for all attendees, including the 12 Points artists, around the topics of gender balance and technilogy and economy in the music industry.

All in all, this year’s 12 Points was a huge success and we’d like to thank each and everyone of you who made it out and soaked it up so joyfully! Stay tuned for details of 12 Points 2019, which will be announced in the coming months

Day One at 12 Points: Wednesday 5th September

Julie Campiche Quartet (Geneva), Susanna Risberg Trio (Stockholm), nOx.3 & Linda Oláh (Paris)

Julie Campiche Trio, Photocredit Dan Kenny

Day Two at 12 Points: THURSDAY 6th September

Mia Dyberg Trio (Copenhagen), Steiger (Gent), Kompost 3 (Vienna)

Steiger, Photocredit Dan Kenny

Day Three at 12 Points: FRIDAY 7th September

Dowry (Dublin), Elliot Galvin Trio (London), Container Doxa (Ljubljana)

Elliot Galvin, Photocredit Dan Kenny

Day Four at 12 Points: SATURDAY 8th September

Kjetil Mulelid Trio (Trondheim), The Rite of Trio (Porto), Dominic J Marshall Trio (Amsterdam)

Pedro, Rite of Trio. Photocredit Dan Kenny

For live videos and more photos of 12 Points 2018 check out our Facebook, Twitter and Flickr pages

See Below for Reviews of 12 POINTS 2018:

Ian Patterson, All About Jazz

‘From over five hundred bands/artists that applied, the twelve selected to perform on The Sugar Club's stage offered an incredibly diverse cross-section of contemporary European music. A lot of the music was too one-of-a-kind to hang a label on, and it's this cutting edge character that broadly defines the 12 Points ethos.

Jazz/improvisation was the dominant common denominator over the four nights, but if the Improvised Music Company's flagship, award-winning festival purveys one clear message above all others, is that's today's contemporary jazz musicians draw their inspiration from myriad sources.

Nor is just a question of ever-evolving styles and the expanding vocabulary that comes almost naturally with each passing decade of jazz—if it even makes any sense to mark the changes in jazz in such units of measurement—but rather it's about an openness to all musical inspiration, and not least, technological innovations. Music in short, without borders.

It's no coincidence, perhaps, that the audience for 12 Points, this year as in others, was markedly younger and more gender-balanced than many more mainstream jazz festivals/concert..’ Read more here.

Alan O’Riordan, Irish Examiner

‘Arguably, Ireland’s best jazz festival — at least in terms of young, cutting-edge acts — 12 Points returned this week to Dublin for its 12th edition.

Though maybe calling it a jazz festival is a bit too narrow. Certainly, improvisation is what unites the 12 acts appearing over four nights at the Sugar Club, but what also unites them is that they collectively celebrate all that’s vibrant and new in European musical culture. There’s life in the old continent yet…’ Read more here.

London Jazz News

‘The choice of young bands from different European countries gave a very comprehensive overview of the different trends in contemporary jazz. Of course, there was a huge amount of variety, but I was particularly struck by six aspects of the bands performing at 12 Points:

- Half of the bands were led or fronted by women.

- All the bands played music that was based on tunes. None of the bands played in a post-bop style of head + solos + head out, nor in a totally free style. They often used the language of free jazz or even occasionally noise music, but always in the context of a tune-based approach. Interestingly, only one group, the Dominic J Marshall Trio, featured vocals

- Nearly all the bands made extensive use of electronics.

Many of the bands made use of a kind of aggressive minimalism, that is repeated motifs often presented with a rock-type energy. The drummers played the key role in this…’ Read more here.