Double bassist Knut Erik Sundquist is one of the contemporary masters of his instrument. His versatile abilities include performing contemporary music with an improvisational element, jazz, and tango, as well as standard orchestral repertory works. Sundquist was born on October 23, 1961, in the small northern Norwegian city of Tromsø. For the first part of his adult life, he was a professional soccer player. He then took up the double bass, constructing his first instrument himself from a tabletop and the neck of an old guitar of his father's. For a time, he played in jazz groups in Tromsø, and then he won a place in the local symphony orchestra. He studied the double bass in Vienna for a time. Sundquist settled in the city of Harstad, south of Tromsø, in 1993, and from then until 2008, he performed in the Northern Norwegian Music Corps of the Norwegian Armed Forces. From 1986 to 1989, he was a bassist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and he has also been a member at various times of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Berlin, among other prestigious groups. Sundquist has also been active in more experimental spheres, performing with Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, Germany, the Midnight Sun Trio, and the Music in Finnmark tango tour. His chamber music partners include pianists Martha Argerich and Leif Ove Andsnes. Sundquist received the jury prize at the Northern Lights Festival, an honor recognizing career accomplishment. Sundquist has appeared on various albums, including 2015's Duo Brilliante with violinist Arvid Engegård. He has recorded for Lawo Classics, Orchid Classics, and Mirare, where, in 2020, he was heard in a new recording of Schubert's Octet in F major, D. 803. Sundquist is an associate professor of music at the Tromsø University Conservatory of Music. ~ James Manheim