Norwegian classical pianists

Wolfgang Plagge (born 23 August 1960 in Oslo, Norway by Dutch parents) is a Norwegian composer and pianist.

Ketil Bjørnstad (born 25 April 1952) is a pianist, composer and author. Initially trained as a classical pianist, Bjørnstad discovered jazz at an early age and has embraced the emergence of "European jazz".He is an artist on the ECM record label, but has also published some twenty books, including novels, poetry, and essay collections.He has collaborated with other ECM artists, including cellists Svante Henryson and David Darling, drummer Jon Christensen, and guitarist Terje Rypdal.

Odd Ragnar Grüner-Hegge (September 23, 1899 – May 11, 1973) was a Norwegian conductor and composer. He was the longest-serving conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, and he was the conductor at the Norwegian National Opera in the 1960s.

Liv Glaser (born 23 September 1935 in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian pianist, music teacher, and professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music, the daughter of violinist Ernst Glaser and pianist Kari Marie Aarvold Glaser, and married 1971 to director of culture Carsten Edvard Munch (1927–2005).

Anne-Marie Ørbeck (1 April 1911 – 5 June 1996) was a Norwegian pianist and composer.

Robert Dankwart Leo Riefling (17 September 1911 – 1 July 1988) was a Norwegian classical pianist and pedagogist. He was regarded among Scandinavia's leading pianists, and toured all over the western world. He was a Professor in Copenhagen from 1967, and in Oslo from 1973.

Robert Levin (6 June 1912 – 29 October 1996) was a Norwegian classical pianist and composer. Although he was an accomplished solo pianist and composer, Levin received international acclaim for his work as an accompanist with several of the world's most celebrated vocal and instrumental performers.

Eva Knardahl Freiwald (10 May 1927 – 3 September 2006) was a Norwegian pianist, with a noted career both as a child prodigy and adult performer.
Her debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 12, in which she played three concertos (those by Johann Sebastian Bach in F minor, Joseph Haydn in D major and Carl Maria von Weber in C major), was received with rave reviews. Knardahl was a student of Mary Barrat Due, who was educated in Italy. Idar Karevold, a music professor in Oslo, said that Knardahl's Italian style was unique in Norway.
She started releasing records early. One of her first recordings was Edvard Grieg's "Wedding Day at Trollhaugen", which was released in 1946.
She emigrated at 19 to the United States, where she had a distinguished career with the Minnesota Orchestra for 15 years. She played on most continents, and for 15 years she was also employed as a pianist ("resident pianist") by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. In a later interview, she told about the US era that the famous composer Henry Mancini often visited the symphony orchestra in Minneapolis. He used to bring his chosen soloists with him during the performance of his compositions, but had so much confidence in Knardahl that he never brought any external pianist.
In 1952, Eva Knardahl was hired as a pianist and soloist in the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Here she became responsible for all piano parts, and she was used in all sorts of different combinations of chamber music with piano, in addition to which she was given major tasks as the orchestra's regular soloist - including trips to Canada, Mexico and the East.
In the USA, collaboration with pianist Artur Rubinstein, composer Igor Stravinsky and conductors Rafael Kubelík, Henry Mancini and André Previn made great artistic progress. Later collaborations with conductors such as Sixten Erling and Kirill Kondrasjin led to successes in Europe.
She returned to Norway in 1967. She became a popular fixture on the Norwegian music scene and was named the first professor of chamber music at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Knardahl was awarded the Norwegian Spellemanspris twice, and she also won the Norwegian Critics' Prize in 1968. She died in Oslo, aged 79.
Knardahl is most known for her interpretations of the piano works of Edvard Grieg. She recorded the composer's complete piano music on 13 LPs for BIS Records in 1977-1980. The recordings were reissued in 2006 on 12 compact discs, also on BIS Records.

Kjell Bækkelund (6 May 1930 – 13 May 2004) was a Norwegian classical pianist.