12 Points! The little festival with the big idea is back for its third edition to ask the only European question that really matters. Just who are the dozen bands from across the union that will light up 2009?

From Wed 11th to Sat 14th February, young musicians from Holland, Norway, Denmark, France, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Germany and The UK will be here to provide the answers along with their Irish hosts, and Poland and Spain will also make their welcome accession to the 12 Points! zone.

It's our most stylistically diverse line up so far and makes clear that, like knobbly carrots, jazz around Europe is anything but homogenous. Europe's young musicians are clearly listening voraciously, embracing technology, collaborating in other artistic spheres, going deep into the tradition and on it goes in a virtuous cycle that's keeping the creative flame alight.

Different preoccupations are abundant. There's lyricism at the piano with London's Curios and Helsinki's Aki Rissanen, while Dublin's Morla and Rome's Luca Aquino are investigating the electronic domain from different perspectives. Poland's Audiofeeling and the bands of Spanish bassist Giulia Valle and French saxophonist Emile Parisien are all rhythmic traditionalists with a modern twist, but a looser modus is favoured by Albatrosh from Oslo and Hyperactive Kid from Berlin. Amsterdam's Zapp and Stockholm's Paavo owe a little something  to the contemporary classical world, while Copenhagen's Magnus Fra Gaarden are none of the above, and might be just as happy

playing a rock festival.

Yes to Europe .Yes to Lisbon. Yes to knobbly carrots. Yes to 12 Points!