Ola Kvernberg
(born 16 June 1981) is a Norwegian jazz musician, known for his
virtuosic string swing violin playing and his international
performances. He is the son of traditional musicians Liv Rypdal
Kvernberg and Torbjørn Kvernberg, and the brother of traditional
musicians Kari Kvernberg Dajani and fiddler Jorun Marie Kvernberg, and
grandson of the fiddler and traditional music composer Peter L. Rypdal.
Kvernberg studied classical violin from the age of nine, and won 3rd
price in a great classical violin competition in Italy when he was
fourteen.
Kvernberg was born in Fræna. He began to play folk music at an early age
and was classically trained through the municipal music school. His
first record release was with the band Fear of flying in 1995. Two years
later, when he was 16, he began playing jazz, and was educated on the
Jazz program at Trondheim musikkonservatorium (2001–03).
Kvernberg spontaneously became known after a meeting with Hot Club de
Norvège in 2000 during the annual Django Festival in Oslo, where he
actually jammed with Toots Thielemans. This gave rise to release album
Hot Club de Norvege presenting Ola Kvernberg and Jimmy Rosenberg (2000),
the solo release Ola Kvernberg (2001), as well as participation on the
record Angelo is back in town with Angelo Debarre (2001), which he also
played with at the Django Festival in January 2002. In April 2002, Ola
was soloist on Jon Larsen's jazz symphony White Night Stories, together
with Hot Club de Norvège and Tromsø Symphony Orchestra, and on two
recordings with this project.
Ola Kvernberg Trio with Steinar Raknes (bass) and Doug Raney (guitar)
released the album Cats and Doug (Hot Club Records, 2002). Erik Nylander
(drums) replaced Raney on the production of Eboue Seck's Wolof
Experience at (Moldejazz 2005). On Vossajazz 2006, they play with Vidar
Busk, accompanied by Håkon Mjåset Johansen (drums). The trio (with
Nylander/Raknes) released the album Night (Jazzland, 2006) with the
Kvernberg's own compositions. People was published in 2009. The
commissioned work Liarbird to the Jazz 2010 was released. For the record
Liarbird he won the Spellemannprisen 2011 in the class jazz.
He played with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Philip Catherine at
Moldejazz 2004, and was involved in the Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Quintet,
the trio Gammalgrass with Stian Carstensen and Ole Morten Vågan, in The
Scarlatti Ensemble with Kim Myhr, Eirik Hegdal and Marianne Baudouin
Lie, with Siri Gjære's Trønderhøns and as a guest in Banjovi with Finn
Guttormsen, Stian Carstensen, Haakon Askeland, Kjartan Iversen and Knut
Hem. In 2007 he was with Thomas Dybdahl on tour. In 2008 Kvernberg
contributed on the Jon Larsen's The Jimmy Carl Black Story. He is
portrayed in the Stein Kagge's book Fra Satchmo til Ola Kvernberg
(2001), and he is the brother of traditional musician Jorun Marie
Kvernberg (1979).