Born in Oslo in 1961, Rolf Lislevand studied classical guitar and then entered the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Switzerland) to work with Hopkinson Smith and Eugène Dombois. He was invited by Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras to accompany them in their various ensembles, where he acquired in-depth knowledge of seventeenth-century French music for viola da gamba and discovered the Spanish vocal music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In 1993 he founded the Ensemble Kapsberger, in which he proposed a new artistic conception of early music, stimulating a whole generation of instrumentalists.
Alongside the work of his ensemble in reconstructing the musical tradition and values of an earlier period for a modern audience, he forged his conception of the solo repertory while establishing his position as one of the benchmark lutenists of our time, appearing at numerous festivals in Europe, the United States and the Middle and Far East. He teaches at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik de Trossingen and the CNSMD de Lyon.
