BATH’s biggest free party kicks off this year’s festival on Friday 16th May in the new-traditional colourful way with music for every taste – acoustic, pop, blues, folk, funk/soul, jazz, blues and indie/rock through to choral and classical.

You really are invited to put on your dancing shoes and let your hair down as the Party in the City launches a ten-day celebration of music and literature in venues that range from Bath’s beautiful churches to museums, pubs, clubs and galleries.

Around 2,000 singers and musicians will play at 39 venues at this amazing free party. You can stay in one place for the duration of the evening, or move from venue to venue to enjoy live performances at Komedia, in Parade Gardens, the Guildhall, Bath Abbey, Green Park Station and many other locations around the city.

Here are a few of the night’s highlights
• Enjoy the chance to hear established names, such as Ishmael Ensemble, winners of BBC Radio 6 Music’s Album of the Year, or guitarist Zac Ware, who plays with The Proclaimers.
• Music from party bands such as The Arkansaw Collective, gypsy punk trio Ninotchka and Soul’d Out.
• In Bath Abbey there will be two performances from combined schools choirs. Voices for Life, a choir of primary schoolchildren singing a specially commissioned composition, Song for Hope, and Harmony Rising, Bath Philharmonia’s inclusive creative choir for 11 to 14-year-olds.
• Food and drink available at Green Park Station, or why not book a table at one of Bath’s brilliant restaurants.
• and the world renowned Natural Theatre Company out and about on the streets.

A new event at this year’s festival, on Saturday 17th May will be the Festival of Choirs at Green Park Station, from 3pm to 10pm, with MC for the day Bath Theatre Royal’s much-loved canto star and writer Jon Monie. Also new, as a finale to the ten day festival of literature and music, Party in the City presents Reverend and the Makers on bank holiday Monday, 26th May from 7pm.

Moving on to the main festival, here are some of the highlights of both the literature and music programmes:

The literature festival celebrates its 30th birthday this year and the line-up reflects that important milestone. It is an impressive list, including Robert Macfarlane, who has a critically acclaimed new book out, Is A River Alive?, poet Ben Okri, gardener Carol Klein, provocative novelist Lionel Shriver, broadcaster Jeremy Vine, author and comedian David Baddiel, politician Sayeeda Warsi, novelist and author of Chocolat, Joanne Harris, actor and animal-lover Martin Clunes, broadcaster and novelist Rev Richard Coles, broadcaster and Today presenter Emma Barnett, historian Max Hastings, rugby star Mike Tindall and journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti.

The music festival, with a stellar line-up of internationally renowned artists, performing in some of Bath’s most beautiful buildings, has twice as many events as 2024, with concerts that span the centuries from Renaissance masterpieces by Byrd and Palestrina and raucous drinking songs to great works of the baroque and classical periods by JS Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms, The performers include The Marian Consort, Stile Antico (making a welcome return after last year’s magical concert in the Abbey), Marmen Quartet, cellist Guy Johnston, playing Bach’s matchless Cello Suites, guitarist Sean Shibe, tenor Ben Johnson, pianist Janeba Kanneh-Mason, Fibonacci String Quartet, violinist Elena Urioste, flautist Adam Walker, clarinettist Yann Ghiro, pianist Tom Poster, The Chamber Orchestra of the West.

There’s a special treat for lovers of baroque music with a concert by Ensemble Moliere, The Dancing Star at St Swithin’s Church on Sunday 25th May at 3pm. This brilliant period ensemble, who have been BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, will perform a delectable programme of dance music by Handel and Rameau, juxtaposing German and French high baroque with a bit of Italian music thrown in for good measure.

Pictured: Scenes from Party in the City and Harmony Rising at the Abbey; Robert Macfarlane’s provocative new book, David Baddiel, Ensemble Moliere, Stile Antico and artist in residence Sean Stibe.