Torleif Torgersen, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Rinaldo Alessandrini
Biography Torleif Torgersen, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Rinaldo Alessandrini
Torleif Torgersen
is born in Bergen and made his debut in Oslo in 1992. He studied with Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, Eva Knardahl and Lazar Berman at the Norwegian Academy of Music and with Liisa Pohjola at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Torgersen received his Diploma in 1993 and joined the MiN-ensemble in Northern Norway the same year. With this sinfonietta type ensemble he has since toured in Norway and Europe and made several recordings, two of which consist solely of works written especially for him by composers Jon Øivind Ness, Mark Adderley, Henrik Hellstenius and Matthew Burtner.
His solo debut CD from 1995 with works by the Norwegian composers Fartein Valen and Lasse Thoresen was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy. He has also recorded the complete piano works of Norwegian composer Klaus Egge, a recording that was prepared while staying as a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada in 1996-97. As a champion of these composers he has performed the music of Valen and Egge in numerous concerts in Russia, Germany, Italy, Turkey and Finland as well as Canada, including performances of Fartein Valens piano concerto in St Petersburg in 2000 and Klaus Egges piano concerto no 2 in Istanbul in 2006.
He has performed at a number of international festivals among them the Berliner Festwochen, St. Petersburg festival and the Prague Festival. Since 2005 Torleif Torgersen has also performed with the legendary violinist Shlomo Mintz in concerts in most of Europe as well as Israel, Japan and South Amerika.
As a performer on historical instruments Torleif Torgersen has held many concerts and lectures and has studied with Liv Glaser, Malcolm Bilson and Bart van Oort. His world premiere recording on fortepiano of the piano works of German / Norwegian composer Carl Arnold in 2011 was met with wide international acclaim.
