Yesterday in the forest north of Oslo, Mayor of Oslo Anne Lindboe and Lord Mayor of Westminster Paul Dimoldenberg joined forces for the felling ceremony of this year's Trafalgar Tree.

The annual tradition has its roots in the first Christmas Tree sent from Oslo to Trafalgar Square in 1947. It is an expression of gratitude for the support Norway received from the UK during World War II.

Join the lighting up ceremony in Trafalgar Square in London on Thursday 4 December from 18.00-18.30. The event is free and open to all.

Photo: Sturlason/Oslo kommune.

Continuing over the weekend at the Norwegian Church in London: The Norwegian Church in Rotherhithe presents a joyous festive weekend replete with Norwegian food, craft and gifts, as well as music and entertainment.

The fair continues today from 11.00-18.00, and Sunday from 11.00-17.00.

London, 26 November: Bugge Wesseltoft, one of Norway’s most innovative jazz pianists, is performing live alongside legendary bassist Arild Andersen and dynamic drummer Gard Nilssen, presenting music from Bugge’s latest album, 'Am Are'.

Am Are, released in 2025, marks a return to the classic piano trio format for Wesseltoft, yet with a fresh, contemporary twist. The album explores a wide range of moods, from introspective minimalism to energetic jazz-rock fusion, highlighting Bugge’s signature blend of acoustic and electronic textures. The album's driving riffs and layered improvisation evoke the spirit of 70s and 80s jazz while remaining firmly rooted in the present.

The Trio will be performing two shows on the evening of Wednesday 26th at Ronnie Scott's.

Bugge Wesseltoft, photo: Egil Hansen.

London, The Shard (15-16 December) & St James's Sussex Gardens in Paddington (17 December): Pianist and composer Espen Berg is a modern-day impressionist whose spontaneously composed music merges figurative and abstract expression with striking virtuosity and flow.

Since 2003, Espen has toured worldwide and released 16 albums as a leader. With Espen Berg Trio he has sold out venues across Asia and Europe, including Ronnie Scott’s in London. Espen was appointed an official Steinway Artist in 2023 and received Norway’s largest jazz grant in 2016. He has composed works for Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and major festivals, collaborating with artists like Seamus Blake, Silje Nergaard, and Marius Neset.

Espen Berg, photo: André Løyning.

Turner Sims in Southampton (Saturday) and Kings Place in London (Sunday): The ice music pioneer, Terje Isungset, returns to the UK with his exquisite quartet featuring voice, ice harp, ice horn, iceophone, ice percussion and ice bass.

The quartet have been playing seven dates in England: beginning in Canterbury and continuing to Basingstoke, Poole, Leeds, Bristol and Southampton before ending at Kings Place in London.

A tribute to nature exploring the extraordinary, beautiful and etheral sounds of ice, the instruments played by Isungset and his Ice Quartet are all carved and crafted using only natural frozen ice from the lakes in Norway.

New to ice music? Watch this video from the quartet's last visit to the UK, performing at St Georges Bristol in 2023.

The Terje Isungset Ice Quartet on stage at The Apex. Photo: Laurence Harvey.

London, 27 November: Fast establishing themselves as one of Norway’s most distinctive new voices, ULD are Une Lorentze Onarheim (vocals), Lucia Andreadatter Utnem (piano), and Dagny Braanen Lindgren (accordion). Together they craft an intimate yet cinematic soundscape that fuses singer-song writing, folk and tradition in a modern way.

Their debut EP fra en annen virkelighet (2024) was hailed as a breakthrough, earning three nominations at the Spellemann Awards (Norwegian Grammys). ULD are playing their first international concert at Union Chapel in London on 27 November, as special guests of Anglo-Irish band Flook. 

Photo: Ole Onstad.

The new Oxford World's Classics edition "Henrik Ibsen and Laura Kieler" presents three plays which tell a fascinating and heartbreaking story, providing a fuller understanding to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Very few readers and audiences know that Ibsen's iconic feminist drama was built upon the real-life story of a woman called Laura Kieler, who was his friend and fellow writer.

Translated by Gaye Kynoch and edited by Kirsten E. Shepherd and Tzen Sam, the book is released 13 November.

London, until 22 November: An aristocratic-looking lady stands with her hands clasped behind her back, fixing us with a searching stare. Behind her, the bones of a once-grand building give way to a vast, misty landscape. Hinterlands, Norwegian artist Kristian Evju’s first solo exhibition with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, transports us into surreal reimaginings of history where the boundaries of time and place begin to dissolve.

These works are prompted by the question: what if? What if history had unfolded differently? What if we remembered it otherwise? Yet rather than offering answers, Evju simply sets the stage. His compositions are tableaux in which real people, objects and fragments of history are pulled from their original contexts, cut apart, reassembled and readied for us to bring to life.

Image: Interior Landscapes V, 2025

Aberystwyth Arts Centre & National Museum Cardiff, until March 1, 2026: Anawana Haloba explores the positions of different societies within varied political, social, economic and cultural contexts, rooted in the ideological and post-independence framework of her home country of Zambia, at National Museum Cardiff.

Working between Oslo and Livingstone, Haloba presents a new version of a large-scale installation that, in an hourly performance, functions as an opera with spoken word and song emanating from a series of objects set within a stage. This libretto unfolds as a dialogue between characters seeking to create empathy and understanding by engaging with questions surrounding the rise of nationalism and the plight of immigrants.

At National Museum Cardiff, Haloba is showing a new interactive sculpture with sound, the viewer invited to listen to whispered fragments of text, music and ambient recordings that emanate from ceramic structures and deal with trauma and healing.

Artes Mundi 11 Launch, National Museum Cardiff, 23rd October 2025. Photo: Polly Thomas.

London, British Museum, until 22 March 2026: Explore the macabre, melancholy and sometimes provocative themes that run through aspects of Nordic art.

Featuring over 150 works by 100 artists from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), Nordic noir opens with two important prints by Edvard Munch (1863–1944), arguably the most famous artist to emerge from the Nordic region and explores how the graphic arts continued to flourish and evolve after his death.

The exhibition is a culmination of a five-year project supported by AKO Foundation to acquire graphic works on paper from the Nordic region. It will address the evocative power and haunting beauty of contemporary Nordic art, and how the region's artists continue to develop the legacy of Munch's emotional expressiveness and creative inventiveness. 

Artist Talk: On 5 December, Vanessa Baird (whose work in the exhibition is illustrated above) will be in conversation with the Hayward Gallery's Gilly Fox at the British Museum.

Vanessa Baird, My Mother, 2019, Reproduced by permission of the artist © The Trustees of the British Museum. Watercolour

London, Tate Modern, until 6 April 2026: Máret Ánne Sara is a Northern Sámi artist and author known for her work exploring global ecological issues through the lens of her lived experience within the Sámi community.

Goavve-Geabbil is a monumental new sculptural installationa. Sara makes sculptures and installations from materials which surround and sustain her community in Sápmi, the territory of the Indigenous Sámi people spanning Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. For her first major work in the UK, the artist draws on her lived experience as member of a reindeer herding family to highlight ecological issues impacting Sámi life.

Photo © Tate (Sonal Bakrania).

▶ This weekend: The Christmas Fair returns to the Norwegian Church in Rotherhithe, London. Expect a joyous festive weekend replete with Norwegian food, craft and gifts, as well as music and entertainment.

▶ The latest release by Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse, Vaim is out now in the UK. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, in an English translation by Damion Searls.

▶ Hedda, a new film directed by Nia DaCosta reimagines Ibsen's classic drama in 1950's England, starring Tessa Thompson in the titular role. As well as playing in selected cinemas, the film is now available on Amazon Prime.

▶ Last Chance to See: Following her acclaimed adaptation of a Dolls house, Tanika Gupta takes on a new adaptation of Hedda after Henrik Ibsen at Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. Taking place in London in 1948, Hedda Gabler (Pearl Chanda) has retired: early, elegantly, and with secrets. Once a Hollywood star, now the wife of a rising British film director, Hedda lives in Chelsea, hiding behind drawn curtains. But the past is beginning to stir. Hedda is a bold new version of Ibsen’s classic drama about blackmail, secrecy and power.


▶ 23 November, London

Still to come during this year's EFG London Jazz Festival: drummer Terje Evensen and trumpet player Rory Simmons are premiering their new project Oh Beautiful Blizzard at Ignition Brewery, Sydenham.


▶ 26 November, London

Bugge Wesseltoft, one of Norway’s most innovative jazz pianists, is performing at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club alongside legendary bassist Arild Andersen and dynamic drummer Gard Nilssen, presenting music from Bugge’s latest album, Am Are. 


▶ 27 November - 2 December, London

Cadogan Fine Arts presents the exhibition 'Visions from the North' at J-M Gallery, 230 Portobello road in London.


▶ 28 - 29 November, London & Manchester

The Queen of Kings Alessandra is playing 2 dates in the UK during her European Tour.


▶ 1 December

From Director Roar Uthaug, Troll 2 - the sequel to the most popular non-English language film on Netflix - launches on the streaming platform.


▶ 4 December, London

For the 78th time, the Trafalgar Tree - the city of Oslo's gift to the people of London - will be lit up in Trafalgar Square. Find out more about the tradition on Westminster City Council's website.


▶ 5 December, London

Book your free ticket to hear artist Vanessa Baird in conversation with the Hayward Gallery's Gilly Fox at the British Museum. The artist talk is one of the events during the British Museum's exhibition of prints and works on paper, Nordic Noir.


▶ 5 December, Newcastle

Author Ørjan Karlsson is part of the lineup at this year's Newcastle Noir festival of international crime fiction.


▶ 15-17 December, London

Espen Berg is among the special guests in Toby Gad's Piano Diaries: Christmas in the Sky events at The Shard. Berg is also performing a fully improvised solo piano concert at St James's Sussex Gardens on the 17th.

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