Ellen Nisbeth

Violist Ellen Nisbeth is a rising figure in the early 2020s decade who was performing important premieres of new music while still in her twenties. Nisbeth records for the BIS label and is also quite active as an educator. Nisbeth was born on June 16, 1987, in Uppsala, Sweden. She attended the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, going on for further studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and at the Royal College of Music in London. Her principal teacher was Peter Herresthal, and she has taken master classes with such prominent violists as Kim Kashkashian, Tabea Zimmermann, and Lawrence Power. Several awards, including the Swedish Soloists Prize and the Nordic Soloists Prize in 2013, aided the growth of Nisbeth's career. In 2014, she was heard on the album Invisible Cities by composer Britta Byström. That year, Nisbeth gave the world premiere of a concerto written for her by Byström, accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She also gave the world premiere of the viola version of Arne Nordheim's Fractures. She made an appearance on the album ... BUT ... by Ensemble Ernst in 2015. Nisbeth has appeared with leading orchestras in Sweden and Norway, including the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, and Gävle Symphony Orchestra. She signed with the BIS label and released her debut album there, Let Beauty Awake, in 2017; the album featured 20th century British music for viola. In 2019, Nisbeth was heard on an album of piano quintets by Georgy Catoire and Ignaz Friedman. Nisbeth is the associate professor of music at the University of Stavanger in Norway and has also taught at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and at Sweden's Edsberg Castle. In 2022, she performed Allan Pettersson's posthumously released Viola Concerto on a recording of Pettersson's works by the Norrköping Symphony.
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