Northern Lights Festival, Tromsø, Norway, January 27-February 4

Perhaps the best way to beat the January blues is to lean into the cold and visit the Arctic Circle, and Tromsø’s Northern Lights Festival was the perfect excuse to do so. Set in the idyllic northern Norwegian city, the festival featured concerts for every taste, from the Sámi music of Niko Valkeapää to the introspective jazz of trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær. There was even an evening of what was described to me as ‘Schubert lieder for the pub’ from the duo frankågunnar. (I’m sorry to report that as I don’t understand Norwegian or German, the entire bit was lost on me…)

On the Tuesday, Norwegian fiddler Susanne Lundeng performed music from her new album Følge, which skirts the worlds of folk and jazz. It was a pleasant set and, between numbers, she would address the mainly local audience and proved to be very engaging – even if you didn’t understand Norwegian.

But the stand-out performance of the week was surely Beninese superstar Angélique Kidjo supported by the Arctic Philharmonic (the world’s northernmost orchestra). I’ve been lucky enough to see Angélique many times before so it was a joy to see her in this novel setting. If any singer deserves to be backed by a full orchestra it’s Angélique. There were of course crowd-pleasing classics like ‘Agolo’ and ‘Mama Africa’ – even though she was fenced in by the orchestra with very little space, she still busted out the moves (“I know it’s cold outside but we’re still alive, right?”) – but this setting offered her the chance to explore some of the slower numbers from her oeuvre that often get overlooked in her live shows. ‘Fifa’ was particularly stunning and moving. It was all the proof needed that Angélique would make an excellent Bond theme.