Conductor Bjarte Engeset gained his diploma at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1989, where he studied with professor Jorma Panula. In 1991 he was chosen as a member of the Tanglewood Music Center conducting seminar where his teachers included Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Simon Rattle and Marek Janowski, among others.
Bjarte Engeset has been music director of the Tromsø Symphony Orchestra and The Norwegian Wind Ensemble, artistic director of Northern Norway´s Northern Lights Festival and Opera Nord, as well as permanent guest conductor of the Flemish Radio Orchestra. From 2007 to 2012 he was chief conductor and artistic director of Sweden’s Dalasinfoniettan, having contributed to the outstanding high level of the orchestra; he is currently music director of the Royal Norwegian Navy Orchestra.
Engeset has performed and toured extensively working with many leading orchestras and artists worldwide. His discography includes more than 30 best-selling recordings, including an eight-disc set of Grieg’s complete orchestral works on Naxos (8.508015). His research and editorial work within the Norsk musikkarv (‘Norwegian Music Heritage’) project, especially on the orchestral music of Grieg, Svendsen, Irgens-Jensen and Tveitt, has been pivotal.
In the Light of the Midnight Sun – Bjarte Engeset talks to Jeremy Siepmann