Bjørn Sagstad is a conductor with a comprehensive repertoire and genre breadth. His belief in a listening and exploring leadership has secured engagements for him as musical director, visiting conductor and conducting teacher in Scandinavia, Europe, north America, middle East and Asia.
Sagstad passionately believes in developing new music and being a sparring partner for both established and young composers. This passion has resulted in several first performances and recordings within a wide musical spectrum and cross over projects.
He holds a great love for teaching. To this end, among other projects, he serves as the course coordinator and mentor for the Maestra program. Maestra is a national initiative for developing female conductor talents and is a part of a national conductor program (Dirigentløftet).
Bjørn Sagstad graduated from the music conservatoires in Bergen – the Grieg Academy of Music, Trondheim and Tromsø, and from Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He has also attended several master classes in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic and north America, taught by Jorma Panula, Tsung Yeh and Ragnar Rasmussen.
Sagstad has been employed as the musical director for the Military Navy Band in Bergen, the Kristiansand Wind Ensemble (Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra), the Kristiansund Symphony Orchestra (Opera) and Prinsen Military Brass Ensemble in Denmark. He has also been involved in developing the Palestinian Youth Orchestra in Ramallah. Sagstad has won the Scandinavian Conductor Competition in Sweden, and has received several prices, grants and endowments.
Currently, Sagstad is associate professor in conducting at the Grieg Academy of Music/UiB in Bergen and has engagements at the following universities: Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU, University of Stavanger UiS, University of Tromsø UiT, at Jyske Music Conservatoire (Denmark), Prins Claus Conservatoire in Groningen (Holland) and in Singapore, in addition to the Sherborne Summer School of Music (England) and the Conductor Week in Stavanger. Bjørn Sagstad is also a much sought-after lecturer.
Since September 2021 he has held a professorship for wind orchestra conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Basel FHNW.
