Bristol’s month(s) in World Music – June/July 2026

Ah! The summer stretches before us and (for technical reasons) here’s a double dose of world music prospects coming your way … In the month of June Bristol’s annual Refugee Festival (Sat 6 – Sun 21) offers a host of activities and entertainments culminating in the family-friendly Celebrating Sanctuary day on College Green (Sun 21) with great food and live music. And then July ends with the long awaited return of WOMAD (Thur 23-Sun 26) now relocated to a new site at Neston Park near Bruton in Somerset. The programme features (among many others) a mix of old favourites like Oumou Sangaré and Barrington Levy and new arrivals like Korean bluegrass band Country Gongband, Occitanean a cappella collective Barrut and the ridiculously long instrument of the 8-strong Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe. If you don’t make the festival (and they may announce day tickets for sale nearer the date) you might notice quite a few WOMAD artists popping up hereabouts, too …

June has a nice choice of African music starting at the Jam Jar with vibrant Malawian street-music duo Madalitso Band (Fri 5) and the same venue has Tanzania’s Zawose Queens (Fri 19), another high-energy duo (albeit with a backing band). Lost Horizon hosts the mighty London Afrobeat Collective, Senegalese kora virtuoso Amadou Diagne is at The Bell (Wed 17) and pan-African groove outfit Afriquoi will be at Strange Brew (Fri 26). Trinity has its ever-popular annual Afrofest all-dayer (Sat 13) – but you’ll have to be quick as they usually sell out.

Reggae scion Julian Marley brings his conscious reggae band The Uprising to The Fleece (Thur 4) and the Beacon have Jamaica Love (Sat 27). That’s a highly praised reggae musical commemorating the 76th anniversary of the Windrush arrival in lively music and dance, with a sound system afterparty in the foyer. The Gwaan Madd residency at Lost Horizon (Fri 12) brings out a range of Caribbean grooves from Soca to Dancehall while the Dub Cave (Loco Club, Sat 27) focuses in on the heavyweight stuff with live performance from Mysticwood. There’s old-school ska at Mr Wolf’s with Ya Freshness (Sat 13) but June’s reggae highlight, has to be a rare performance from the Bristol Reggae Orchestra at St George’s (Sat 20). Based in St Paul’s, this sprawling collective has fine orchestral arrangements of reggae and ska classics with tight beats and great instrumental and vocal performances.

One of the big sensations to come out of the Bristol jazz and Latin scenes in the last couple of years has been the Buena Bristol Social Club, an all-star celebration of the Cuban original led by trumpeter Michel Padron and pianist Jim Blomfield. Now Michel launches an even bigger band – the Michel Padron ‘Afro-Cuban Orchestra’ – with an extended line-up celebrating the Afro-Latin jazz of Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente and others (Lantern, Sun 21). Given the sheer musical quality of the collective and Michel’s energetic commitment as a bandleader it should be another great success. And you can also find many of those musicians at the Canteen Latin Descarga session (Tue 16).

Lovers of Brazilian party grooves have a great weekend in store when Lost Horizon have their Baile do Brazil night (Sat 13) followed by the Fleece’s Baile Involvidable (Sun 14) – the latter celebrating the notorious (and brilliant) Bad Bunny – and Zubieta and The Suaves celebrate classic bossa nova with their guests at Canteen (Tue 23).

St George’s will reverberate to the irresistible sound of Pakistan’s Sufi Qawwali tradition (Wed 10) from long-established collective Fanna-Fi-Allah who embellish their hypnotic vocal rhythm with tabla and harmonium and the legendary whirling dancing. Arooj Aftab’s much more contemporary take on South Asian vocal tradition (Beacon, Sun 21) was a Glastonbury hit last year. She will be weaving an ambient flow through rich orchestral arrangements from the London Contemporary Orchestra. Multi-lingual singer Marianna Morales ranges from Eastern Europe to the Middle East in Chai For All (Tobacco Factory, Sun 14), all linked by a vigorous sense of rhythm and fun while the Cotham Club has the Bristol debut of the Zaid Hilal Band (Cotham Parish Church, Fri 26), a contemporary folk-pop group from Palestine’s occupied West Bank. And June has one more intriguing vocal experience in Dungi Sapor (Jam Jar, Sat 20) a Taiwanese DJ and producer who combines indigenous singing traditions and contemporary electronic dance music.

July also has tasty African grooves in the shape of Benin International Musical (aka BIM) coming to the Jam Jar (Wed 29) with an electronically enhanced uptake on traditional voodoo music. The Cotham Club has the unlikely sounding Bunja Conteh and Afrowelsh Connection (Fri 17) – but maybe not so unlikely when you consider the  link between Bunju’s West African kora and Wales’ harp tradition. The Jam Jar also hosts Ghanaian superstar Rocky Dawuni (Fri 10) whose Afro-Roots sound is a hybrid of Highlife, Afrobeats and Reggae.

Straight outta Bogota, Columbian trio La Perla’s (Jam Jar, Sat 11) take on the roots of Cumbia has seen them work with the likes of Jazz Re:Freshed star Nubya Garcia among others but their fresh acoustic sound needs nothing more than voice and percussion to fill a dance floor. Other Latin treats in July are Bossa Nova devotees Zubieta and the Suaves (Canteen, Tue 28) and the high energy Canteen Latin Descarga jam session (Tue 21).

Hailing from the Pakistani region of Baluchistan, 80 year-old musician Ustad Noir Bakhsh (Jam Jar, Fri 31) is a master of the Benju, a kind of keyed sitar which he has electrified and uses to play a wide range of traditional and contemporary music, including Bollywood themes and Pakistani pop. Its a remarkable sound and a virtuoso bit of musicianship. It’s good to see a washboard in operation, too, and its rasping rhythm sound is key to the cajun music of Joli Bon who come to The Bell (Sun 19) where that ever-tolerant stage expects to be later swamped by the flexible reggae and ska collective Revelation Roots (Wed 22).