Professor Rolf Lislevand is an instrument teacher in guitar- and Lute Instruments at the Department of Classical Music and Music Education.
Rolf Lislevand was born in Oslo, but soon traveled to Basel in Switzerland to study lute and early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. After completing his studies, he settled in Italy, which together with Lyon in France and Evje in Setesdalen as of today still is his permanent residence.
During his studies at the Norwegian music academy in Oslo, Lislevand mainly worked with improvised music and jazz / rock. After his studies, he kept in touch with the Norwegian environment at the same time as he established himself internationally as a soloist and chamber musician.
Rolf Lislevand is currently Professor of Lute, Improvisation and Historically Informed Performance Practice at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Trossingen (Germany) since 1993. He is Professor of Lute, Improvisation and Chamber Music at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon (Lyon, France) since 2012 and Professor 2 and part-time teacher at UiA since 2013. He became an Honorary Doctor at the Kungl. Musikaliska akademien, Stockholm in 2018.
Lislevand's business has a large geographical spread. Apart from being a permanent resident of three different countries, his professional and private career has brought him close to a variety of cultures. For more than 30 years, he has worked with people and institutions in the biggest European countries. He has felt how great and enriching differences in culture, history and mentality are in 2020, only on a small continent like Central Europe. Working with art and music across borders will always be an exercise and reminder of this, and constantly reminds us of the importance of openness, curiosity, tolerance and willingness to understand. Mastering foreign languages is part of that insight. Lislevand teaches and gives lectures in Norwegian, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
Ever since 1987, Lislevand has had an intense international misucal career and held numerous courses, lectures and seminars in Europe, Asia, the USA and Latin America. The concerts are a mixture of solo concerts, chamber music and special cross-border and creative new projects. His most important partner as a chamber musician for more than 30 years has been Jordi Savall, perhaps the most significant pioneer and performer of early music in our own time.
Lislevand is a regular jury member at various international competitions, primarily for early music and guitar.
Rolf Lislevand has a long career behind him with his own ensembles and as a soloist. He has contributed to an estimated 110 CD productions, of which about twenty are under his own name as artistic director or soloist. His own productions have received a number of national and international awards such as Spellemannsprisen, NOPAs Musikkpris, Den Norske Kritikerprisen, French Diapason d’Or de l’année Choc de la Musique ,, MIDEM, Cannes, German ECHO, and English Grammophone Critic’s Choice. Since 2006, Lislevand has mainly collaborated with ECM, Sony Classical and Harmonia Mundi.
However, Lislevand's mandate at UiA is not only related to his competence as a musician in the early music tradition. In his work at UiA, he brings with him his personal experiences with various forms of contemporary music, both acoustic and electronic, and not least the improvisation in various historical and contemporary styles.
The field of improvisation is a synthesis of many different approaches and experiences in different style areas. Sometimes style and tradition are important, other times they are an obstacle. At UiA, in collaboration with the students, they try to develop a pedagogy and a method where the most important aspects of improvisation are themed and put into a system.
As a teacher at UiA, Lislevand invites students to a dialogue where they both get to know the improvisational practice that has existed in Western music history from the Renaissance until the 20th century, and they meet a contemporary and current improvisational practice based on sound, situation, communication and musical dramaturgy. This with a view not to reproduce, but to create style.