Royal Academy of Music announces Bjarte Eike as a Visiting Professor
Bjarte Eike performing with Academy students in Resounding Shores: Music for the Theatre and the Alehouse
© 2024 Charlotte Levy
News Story
The Academy announces one of the world’s most innovative and pioneering baroque violinist-directors, Bjarte Eike, as a Visiting Professor in our Historical Performance Department. From September 2026, Bjarte will lead a range of projects with our students, including workshops, masterclasses and performances.
Visiting Professors play an important role in the student experience at the Academy; they provide opportunities for students to perform alongside leading, international artists and deepen their industry experiences and connections. Bjarte has previously collaborated with Academy students, performing alongside them as part of our Resounding Shores concert series, which celebrates Purcell and his contemporaries. In his first engagement as Visiting Professor, Bjarte will return to the Academy to direct a performance of Venus and Adonis by John Blow in early 2027.
Bjarte Eike pushes the boundaries of classical music, constantly looking for new projects in the borderland of genres, exploring the role of the musician on stage; looking to enhance projects through movement, playing from memory, singing and improvisation, and therefore continuing to reach out to new audiences. As the founder and Artistic Director of Barokksolistene, he has created new and innovative programmes including The Image of Melancholy dealing with sad songs and emotions through renaissance, folk and experimental music and the critically acclaimed The Alehouse Sessions, which explores 17th-century music from the pubs and alehouses in England and has found itself a home in spaces as diverse as barns and rock clubs, candlelit theatres and major concerts halls, including the Royal Albert Hall for BBC Proms.
The very first time I stepped into the Academy, I felt a very strong connection with the amazing students and staff there. The welcoming, warm atmosphere, combined with top class musicianship, curiosity and openness, is truly inspiring. I feel both excited, humble and extremely grateful for getting this opportunity to cement and develop the partnership with the Royal Academy of Music further.
Other major collaborations include staged productions at the Norwegian National Opera, Bergen International Festival, Den Ny Opera Denmark and Longborough Festival Opera. He has created bespoke programmes with modern ensembles as diverse as Royal Northern Sinfonia, Arctic Philharmonic, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Choir.
He is a noted composer and arranger, and recently co-produced Jess Gillam’s next album for Decca Classics. Sought after as a curator he has been Artist-in-Residence at several festivals, drawing together music from different traditions including folk, world and Baroque.
I am thrilled that our relationship is strengthened by this appointment and delighted to welcome Bjarte Eike into the Academy family.
Each visit from Bjarte encourages our students to think out of the box, take risks and communicate the power of rhetoric, movement and poetry, as well as the sheer delight of what boundless joys music can bring to audiences. We are delighted to be cementing this association.
Academy Baroque soloists led by Bjarte Eike perform music by Purcell, Locke, Blow
Bjarte Eike joins other recently appointed Visiting Professors at the Academy including Barbara Hannigan, Hilary Hahn, Nicky Spence and Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
