Arvid Engegård is the artistic director of the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival. He comes from Bodø, but lives in Oslo today. He was educated in Trondheim, New York and Salzburg, where he had the legendary Sandor Vegh as a teacher.

Arvid has all his life had a special interest in chamber music, and was for 10 years primarius for the Orlando Quartet in Holland.

Own quartet

During the festival’s first edition in 2004, he met musicians that he immediately established in a new quartet, the Engegård Quartet. This ensemble today enjoys international recognition and is in great demand throughout the Nordic region.

Since its establishment, the quartet has been the closest one can call a “house quartet” to the festival, and is always central to the program. Through the establishment of the Oslo Quartet Series, the Engegård Quartet has contributed to the string quartet as an ensemble gaining a fresh lease of life.

Today, Engegård is also a widely used conductor, where he often gets assignments within the Viennese classical repertoire, a repertoire he masters better than anyone else in Norway.