Bjørgvin Guitar Quartet

Bjørgvin Guitar Quartet

The quartet has played together since the fall of 2013 and performed on festivals such as Festspillene i Bergen. They have also arranged concerts in smaller venues in the west of Norway, and they made a concert tour of the area in the winter of 2014. The repertoire ranges from the renaissance to modern music, with pieces both transcribed and written for a guitar quartet.

Öystein Magnús Gjerde, the only member from Iceland, is 23 years old. He studied classical guitar for five years in Iceland; first with Torvald Gjerde, and later with Matti Saarinen and Steingrímur Birgisson as his teachers. In 2010 Öystein moved to Norway to study music at Toneheim Folkehøgskole, a folk high school in Hamar. There he had lessons with Reidar Edvardsen. One year later he started his bachelor’s degree at The Grieg Academy in Bergen, which he has just finished, first with Njål Vindenes as his teacher for one year and then with Stein-Erik Olsen for the remaining three years

Thomas Schoofs Melheim is 24 years old from Lærdal, Norway. He studied with Øystein Eide at Firda High School from 2007-2010, and with Stein-Erik Olsen and Egil Haugland at the Grieg Academy in Bergen from 2010 untill he finished his bachelor degree now in June. Playing in ensembles and as a soloist, he has played concerts all over the western part of Norway. Chamber music is his passion in music, and he plans to do more of this in the future.

Morten Andre Larsen is 23 years old from the remote village of Havøysund in the northernmost reaches of Norway. His career as a classical guitarist started some 10 years ago, at age 13, with Alfred Stabell, his first teacher. He later studied with Svein Hugo Sørensen at Alta High School from 2008. Morten started his bachelors degree in 2011 at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, first with Njål Vindenes for one year, and then Stein-Erik Olsen for the remaining years. Now he has just finished bachelor degree and will continue his master studies in Bergen in the fall of 2015.

Dag Håheim is 25 years old and started his education as a classical guitarist, with Øystein Eide, at the age of 15. He is currently doing his master’s degree at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in 2014 under the guidance of Stein-Erik Olsen and Egil Haugland. In 2012/2013 he studied with Marco Tamayo at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He has also attended many master-classes in Bergen and abroad, with such performers as Pavel Steidl, Marcin Dylla, Odair Assad and others.