Ellayali

Karl Espegard was born 1983 in Norway and started playing the violin with Thode Fagelund at the age of eight. At twelve he had his first solo appearance with an orchestra and at thirteen he entered the Barratt Due Institute of Music, known as the foremost school for young musicians in Norway. Among his teachers at the institute was Ole Bøhn, Morten Carlsen and Stephan Barratt Due. As a member of the Swiss Chamber Orchestra, Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra and Nowegian Youth Symphony Orchestra, Karl has toured great parts of the world and performed in venues like The Forbidden City Beijing, Konzerthaus Wien, Philharmonie Berlin, Palau de la Musica Valencia, and other scenes in South-Afrika, England and Holland.

Karl has been three times a recipient of a scholarship for the renowned summercourse Margess International in Switzerland, and in duo with russian pianist Ksenia Morozova he has given recitals in Norway, Switzerland and Russia. Karl has performed in masterclasses given by Seppo Tukinainen, Piotr Janowskij, Camilla Wicks, Stephen Shipps, Ilya Konovalov and Thomas Füri. Together with norwegian avantgardist Hilde Aagaard and violinist Bjarne Magnus Jensen he has performed Arnt Håkon Ånesens “Point” at installations in Norway and Japan.

As a student of Detlef Hahn since 2002, Karl has studied at Hochshule der Künste, Bern, and the Academy of Music, Oslo, where he finished his Bachelor in Performance in the spring of 2007. Karl has taught violin at music schools in Drammen, Røyken and Sørum. In 2008 he worked as a county musician in Mo i Rana, where he also taught the violin. Karl is an active member of the multicultural group Ellayali, and plays in a duo with guitarist Jan Frode Stevy. He is currently residing in Oslo where he works as a freelance musician.