Experience all the good music Oslo World 2026 has to offer.
At the Oslo World office, we’re listening to this year’s festival playlist on our favorite streaming service, Qobuz, but we’ve also put together an alternative for Spotify users. There’s lots of great music here, so give it a listen to get to know some of the artists before the festival kicks off.
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.
Autumn may bring miserable weather and low temperatures, but at Oslo World, we’re going to dance. All week long, there will be a range of club events at Jaeger and other venues – check out the club programme here for a dedicated overview. We can also guarantee movement when the legends of Hovedøen Social Club take over Cosmopolite, at the Kacper, Le Motel & Magugu night at Trekanten, and not least when the wildly youthful cumbia orchestra Frente Cumbiero make Nasjonal Jazzscene shake to its foundations. And the dancing doesn’t stop there, of course – check out Explosive Bands, for example, for more hot tips.
In recent years, there has been a surge of new artists creating pop, club music and experimental sounds rooted in the Andean region. At Nasjonal Jazzscene, you can experience A.CHAL’s eclectic diaspora pop and Peruvian trap queen Renata Flores, who blends contemporary genres with the Quechua language on Saturday. Also keep an eye out for the duo Los Thuthanaka, who played one of the best concerts we’ve seen all year at Roskilde in summer 2026.
Oslo World is a festival where you can hear the very latest, while also experiencing the currents of history and craftsmanship refined over many decades. The great Lebanese oud player and singer Marcel Khalife will open our festival, while the Italian Renaissance man and free spirit Jovanotti will play the closing concert. At Cosmopolite, you can experience an intimate encounter with the much-loved cult artist Beverly Glenn-Copeland.
By now, we’ve probably been talking about the new (young) Norwegian folk music wave for so long that it can be considered part of the new normal. And thank goodness for that! Two artists demonstrate the breadth of this scene. Inger Hannisdal draws on both Arab and Norwegian traditions in a band that shows how what’s happening on this scene is also driven by a spirit of musical adventure. The trio Ævestaden are a sensation both live and on record, and are coming to interpret a folk music classic from 2001 – and 1934.
A good number of concerts at this year’s festival draw nourishment from punk, noise and alternative underground music. Here are three: solo performances by Ava Mendoza move between avant-garde guitar and powerful songwriting; South African underground punk phenomenon Twenty One Children are set to turn Kafé Hærverk upside down – and at the same venue, noise legends Melt-Banana will play two sold-out shows. But make sure to also check out bands like Dirty Three and BCUC!