Festival Guide: Patient Ecstasy
Some concerts invite you to dive deep — music that traces long arcs and sprawling soundscapes you can zoom in on, or simply zone out to. Patience music comes in many shades, from ancient traditions to brand-new experiments. This year, for example, we present Mazaher, who perform transcendental, hypnotic music rooted in ancient Egyptian funeral rituals. Gamelan Shockbreaker, meanwhile, brings together a virtuosic gamelan orchestra and some of Norway’s most accomplished jazz musicians. Also keep an eye out for the artists we recommend in Friday Picks, Explosive Bands and Noisy Neighbours.
Gamelan Shockbreaker feat. Patrick Shaw Iversen, Ismet Ruchimat, Bugge Wesseltoft, Nils Petter Molvær, Rita Tila, Kenneth Ekornes & The SambaSunda Performing Arts
Riksscenen
28 October
At Oslo World 2026, Gamelan Shockbreaker writes a new chapter in the project’s fusion of Indonesian gamelan music and Norway’s electronic jazz scene. The project is the result of a creative collaboration between flautist Patrick Shaw Iversen and gamelan musician Ismet Ruchimat, leader of the acclaimed Javanese SambaSunda Performing Arts orchestra.
Gamelan music has had an enormous influence on Western music over the past 150 years. Its reach extends from French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy, through American post-war minimalists such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, to art-rock pioneers including Brian Eno, Talking Heads and King Crimson. Not to mention countless electronic artists and jazz musicians.
And Gamelan Shockbreaker brings some of them together: trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft and drummer/percussionist Kenneth Ekornes. Together, they will explore shared and unfamiliar territory with members of the SambaSunda Performing Arts orchestra.
Read more and buy tickets HERE!
Mazaher
Nasjonal Jazzscene
29 October
A concert with Mazaher is a special, hypnotic experience that connects the listener with ancient, trance-like pre-Christian and pre-Islamic traditions. The musicians Um Sameh, Um Hassan and Nour El Sabah are among the foremost — and last remaining — practitioners of the genre in Egypt today.
The tradition has historically been preserved and practised by women, while men have played a secondary role. It combines singing, polyrhythmic drumming and dance, and revolves around the six-stringed Egyptian lyre known as the tambura. This sacred instrument is depicted on the walls of tombs and temples in ancient Egypt.
Another important instrument is the mangour: a leather belt sewn with goats’ hooves and various percussion objects. Everything comes together in a healing ritual, often understood as a form of exorcism. But it is really more about finding inner harmony.
Zar creates a space where people can process the tensions and frustrations of social constraints without restricting the way they move, dress, speak or dream. In short — it does what great music so often does.
Read more and buy tickets HERE!
