Jonas Båtstrand

Jonas Båtstrand was born in 1973 and comes from Nøtterøy. He studied at Norges Musikkhøgskole and also holds a soloist diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He has studied with Zakhar Bron, Camilla Wicks and Miguel Negri in Germany, USA and Italy. He has also played for masters such as Ruggiero Ricci and Yehudi Menhuin. He has won several awards during his studies – the Honorary Award in the Sparre Olsen-Competition being one of them.

He was the artistic director and initiator of the Sommerkonsertene Levende klassisk in Tønsberg in 2006 and has participated in festivals such as the Oslo Grieg Festival and Cafe de concert festival in Fredrikstad. He has led Fredrikstad Chamber Orchestra in a series of concerts in Norway and Sweden, the Stenungsund Chamber Music Festival 2011, among others.

Jonas is also the artistic director of Christiania ensemble, whose agenda is to perform unfamiliar works from the golden age of Norwegian musical life. They have for instance performed Sinding and Borgstrøm piano quintets with pianist Christian Ihle Hadland. In 2010 he published hisdebut album with the initial recording of Hjalmar Borgstrøms (1864-1925) violin concerto at Simax, with great reviews from Aftenposten and the music magazine Classic. He has later released Borgstrøm’s complete works for violin and piano (PSC1237) and works by Sinding, Irgens-Jensen and Halvorsen (PSC1335).

Sept 2020