A short biography

The pianist Einar Røttingen is Professor of Music Performance at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen. He received his education at the Bergen Music Conservatory and Eastman School of Music. In addition to being a regular guest at the annual Bergen International Festival and Edvard Grieg Museum concert series in Norway, he has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in major cities in Europe, USA, Japan and China. Throughout the 1980s, Røttingen worked closely with the Norwegian composer Harald Sæverud and has recorded all the solo piano music in addition to the Piano Concerto with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (Simax). He has also collaborated with many living composers and has commissioned numerous works. His recordings include the solo-CD Avgarde with works by Knut Vaage, Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Glenn Haugland, Jostein Stalheim and Ketil Hvoslef and others, Hika - with the violinist Trond Sæverud in works by Crumb, Takemitsu, Messiaen, Debussy and Grieg - and George Crumb's Makrokosmos. Hika was chosen as 'Selection of the month' in The Strad in 2002. In 2005 Einar Røttingen was soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in the first performance of Knut Vaage's Piano Concerto The Gardens of Hokkaido which was released as a CD in 2010. The solo-CD Norwegian Variations, which includes Grieg's Ballade op.24 and sonatas by Fartein Valen and Geirr Tveitt, was chosen as 'Special Selection' in International Piano in 2006 and awarded 'Record of the Year' by The International Grieg Society of Great Britain. This CD is also included in his PhD dissertation from 2006: Establishing a Norwegian Piano Tradition: Interpretive Aspects of Edvard Grieg's Ballade op.24, Fartein Valen's Sonata no.2 op.38 and Geirr Tveitt's Sonata no.29 op.129. In 2007 Røttingen performed the complete 172 songs of Edvard Grieg with the bass-baryton Njål Sparbo in a series of 7 concerts as part of the Grieg September Festival in Bergen. As a part of the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen's birth in 2008 he performed, among other works, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus and Des Canyons aux Etoiles. Einar Røttingen has been awarded the City of Bergen Cultural Prize and The Bergen International Festival's Robert Levin Festival Prize.