Norwegians in Edinburgh this July & August |
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Concerts over the coming week, and returning to the UK for concerts in October: First Prize Winners at the 2025 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists 2026-28, Opus13 are rapidly building a reputation on the international chamber music scene. Their debut album, featuring works by Mendelssohn and Grieg, will be released in September 2026 on Alpha Classics.
Opus13 comprise Norwegian violinists Sonoko Miriam Welde and Edvard Erdal, and violist Albin Uusijärvi and cellist Daniel Thorell, both from Sweden.
Opus13, photo: © Julia Wesely. |
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Nichola Smalley is NORLA's
Translator of the Month |
After a whirlwind of abortive study and career choices (medicine, fashion, publishing), Nichola Smalley finally settled on literary translation in 2022. She has translated almost twenty fiction and non-fiction books for adults and a few children’s books from Norwegian and Swedish, and has been nominated for numerous awards.
Her translation of Oliver Lovrenski’s Da vi var yngre / Back in the Day was shortlisted for the 2026 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, a prize she won in 2021 with her translation from Swedish of Andrzej Tichý’s Eländet / Wretchedness. She has a PhD in the use of slang in Swedish and English literature and lives in London.
Nichola Smalley, photo: Robin Howells |
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Ida Ekblad: Eat an Eggplant |
London, Galerie Max Hetzler, until 8 August: Galerie Max Hetzler presents EAT AN EGGPLANT, a solo exhibition of new works by Ida Ekblad. This solo exhibition is the artist’s sixth exhibition with the gallery, and her first in the London space.
Taking a distinctly painterly approach to a wide range of media, Ekblad presents new oil on linen paintings, oils on paper, enamel on steel works, hand-painted bronze sculptures, and a large glass lantern.
Ida Ekblad (b. 1980, Oslo) is an Oslo-based artist educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Mountain School of Arts, Los Angeles. She has exhibited widely at major international institutions and participated in the Venice Biennale in 2011 and 2017. Her work is held in leading museum collections worldwide, including the British Museum and Centre Pompidou.
Looking ahead, a major survey of Ekblad's work will open at The Hepworth Wakefield later this year, travelling to Aalborg in 2027.
Ida Ekblad, FULIGIN SMARAGDINE, 2026, oil on linen, in artist frame. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa. Foto: Uli Holz |
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Ahmed Umar: Glowing Phalanges |
London, Holtermann Fine Art, until 1 August: Glowing Phalanges is a solo exhibition by Ahmed Umar, part of his ongoing project Forbidden Prayers (since 2018). The show features sculptural works in glass and mixed media, each set within casts of the artist’s right hand.
The project is rooted in Umar’s experience of two Islamic traditions: Sufism (Sudan) and Wahhabism (Mecca). While Sufism embraces prayer beads and amulets, Wahhabism rejects them, instead emphasizing counting prayers on the fingers. Umar draws on the belief that these fingers—or phalanges—will glow on Judgement Day as proof of devotion, which inspires the exhibition’s title. The work has been widely exhibited across Europe, and Umar has received major recognition, including participation in the 2024 Venice and Toronto Biennales and the Baloise Prize at Art Basel 2024.
Ahmed Umar (b. 1988, Sudan) is an Oslo-based cross-disciplinary artist who earned his MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2016. His work explores identity, religion, and cultural values, often drawing on personal experiences to address themes of oppression, alienation, liberation, and self-ownership. He is also an important public voice for queer Muslims in Norway and Sudan.
Photo: Ahmed Umar, credit: Agnete Brun. |
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| Soho Theatre, London, 6 - 11 July: .
What would happen if, instead of starting clown school in Paris, you accidentally ended up following a group of Syrian refugees on their journey to seek asylum in Europe? How would your experience be different from theirs? Dreamgirl is an immersive retelling of Norwegian filmmaker and clown Karen Houge’s real-life experience following refugees in her mid-20s, through storytelling, play, clown, interaction… and a bit of Lego. |
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6 dates in the UK, 6 - 14 July: Celebrating the legacy of a true great of modern music, Sonny Rollins, and his iconic ‘The Bridge’ record, Oslo-based Bridge Quartet return to the UK following their debut tour in 2025.
Bridge Quartet brings together British guitarist James Girling and saxophonist Dave Edge with formidable Scandinavian drummer Emil Norman and bassist Andreas Svabø.
6 July – Spice of Life, London
9 July – Band on the Wall (Copper Bar), Manchester
11 July – Zeffirellis, Ambleside
12 July – The Globe, Newcastle
13 July – Studio recording with British trumpeter, Aaron Wood
14 July – Jazz At HEART, Leeds |
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Last Chance to See: Anne Iren Buan |
London, Siegfried Contemporary, until 18 July: For her debut solo exhibition in the UK, Oslo-based artist Ann Iren Buan investigates the materiality of drawing, the emotional and atmospheric potential of colour, and the tension between surface and structure.
The artworks on view explore themes of decay, material transformation and renewal. Buan continuously pushes the surface of her drawings towards volume and material presence. Densely layered dry pastel accumulates into thick tactile formations that rupture the picture plane, shifting drawing into the realm of relief and sculpture. Pigment is not applied but built, compressed and worked, producing surfaces that appear both fragile and excessive, at once eroded and generative.
Photo: Anne Iren Buan, Carmine Ashes I, II, III, 2026, drypastel on paper, drypastel and waxoil on birch. Credit: Gillies Adamson Semple. |
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The Norwegian Highlights Newsletter will return with more cultural tips in August. |
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MORE DATES FOR YOUR DIARY |
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Happening Now:
▶ The exhibition Nomenclature for the Time Being gathers the work of Sandra Mujinga and over ten other artists whose practices span sculpture, performance, writing, photography and video. At Raven Row in London until 6 September.
▶ 4, 7, 9 July, Kilrenny, Crail, Leeds, Cheltenham First Prize winners at the 2025 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, Norwegian-Swedish quartet Opus 13 are performing at East Neuk Festival, Leeds Chamber Concerts, and the Cheltenham Festival.
▶ 10 July, London
Owen Edward Snaith and Dr Dellores Laing will be in conversation at the Lighthouse Soho. The designer will be discussing his research as part of the ongoing project Interweaving Threads, a deep exploration of the relationship between Scottish and Norwegian heritage textiles and traditional folk dress.
▶ 24 July, London
Cellist Jonathan Aasgaard makes his Proms debut as soloist, as John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London return to the Proms for the first of two concerts, performing Respighi’s trilogy of Rome-inspired tone-poems alongside Walton’s rhapsodic Cello Concerto.
▶ 20 August, Edinburgh
A cappella sextet Nordic Voices return to Edinburgh after 30 years for the concert The Maid of Norway - A Queen of Scots, 1286-90 at Edinburgh New Town Church.
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