Oslo World fills annually the autumn evenings, and many of Oslo's best stages, with music, conversations and cultural expressions from all over the world. This year's festival starts on Monday and takes place until 6 November.
The festival aims for a meeting point between music and activism and wants to look at the way culture affects, and allows itself to be affected by, political developments and the current global turmoil. Writer and journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam will open this year's Oslo World, he has made an impact with his political journalism and more personal essays concerning themes like migration, racism and class in contemporary Norway.
This year's festival theme is movement. Already last year, Oslo World, as one of the first festivals in the country, was able to put away the fixed seating instructions and let people move. As part of this year's theme, Oslo World has established the Movement network, a festival collaboration with organizers in Bergen, Tromsø, Skien and Molde, to present music from all over the world in Norway. The network will collaborate to offer music experiences from different parts of the world around week 44 each year. We see it as a long-term move to ensure that the Norwegian concert culture remains international, even in years of setbacks.
The opening concert with the Cuban artist Omara Portuondo will be a meeting with eight decades of musical history - from Chucho Valdés and the Tropicana cabaret and up till today. Check out the festival guide here.
Oslo World is one of Europe’s leading venue festivals, presenting a global outlook on today’s music scene, with a special focus on music from Africa, Latin-America, Asia and the Middle East. The task of the festival has remained unchanged since 1994: To bring the world to Oslo and Oslo to the world.
