Halvor F. Melien

Having established himself in a short time as one of Norway’s leading singers, Halvor F. Melien is today a much sought-after baritone who performs regularly in Scandinavia, Europe and Asia. He has worked with Early Music specialists Paul Agnew, Fabio Biondi, Alessandro De Marchi and Andrew Lawrence-King, among others, and he is a versatile singer with a wide-ranging repertoire of operas, oratorios, masses, cantantas, and song cycles in all styles. He has sung with top international orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Les Talens Lyriques, the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ho-Chi-Minh City Symphony Orchestra, as well as with leading Norwegian symphony orchestras and ensembles, including the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, the Trondheim Soloists, and Oslo Sinfonietta. He has also been engaged as soloist at the Norwegian National Opera and on other opera stages, in church music contexts, and in smaller settings. He has received special recognition for his Bach interpretations. Moreover, he has premiered and recorded works of contemporary composers, including Ørjan Matre, Knut Vaage and Øyvind Mæland. The German Lied from Schubert and Schumann via Mahler to Webern is also an important part of his repertoire and he is at present part of two Lied duos. A graduate of the Norwegian Academy of Music, Melien has also studied in Berlin and has participated in the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.