JUHANI SILVOLA

BioG

​Juhani Silvola is a Norwegian/Finnish composer, musician, and record producer working across a wide variety of genres and disciplines. He studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH) in Oslo, and has a bachelor's degree in jazz guitar (2002-08), and two master's degrees: (i) Composition of Electroacoustic Contemporary Music with Natasha Barrett as supervisor (2016-18), and (ii) Music Theory with Ram Reuven as supervisor (2022-25). Silvola works in the following fields:

FOLK/TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Juhani is an internationally renowned folk music guitarist working within scottish, norwegian, and nordic traditions. Main projects are:

Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola

An internationally acclaimed and pioneering traditional music duo that has existed since 2010. We have released five critically acclaimed albums, won the 2022 NOPA Music Prize, been nominated for a 2021 Norwegian Spellemann Award in the Traditional Music category, and received four Top Of The World from Songlines.

We also work across genres and disciplines, and have composed four extended works for string ensembles in which we appear as soloists, integrating scottish and nordic traditional music, classical chamber music, and experimental/contemporary music: 

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Interwoven

(2025, string quartet, 45min, 4 movements)

Commissioned by the Canadian new music specialists Bozzini Quartet. Played 4 times, album recording to be released autumn 2027.

Spirit Multitude

(2024, string orchestra, 22min, 1 movement)

Commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, played at Tectonics Festival 2024, with conductor Ilan Volkov.

How to Raise the Wind

(2022, string quintet, 43min, 7 movements)

Commissioned by Nordlysfestivalen 2022, played 12 times. Second movement won NOPAs Music Prize 2022. Album (2025) won The Instrumental Album of The Year at Fatea Magazine was among the 5 best folk-music records of the year at The Scotsman.

Sølvstrøk

(2020, string orchestra, 48min, 10 movements)

Oslo World 2020 & Førdefestivalen 2021. Songlines Top of the World album (2023).  

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Torgeir Vassvik & Juhani Silvola

They combine traditional joik with experimental jazz/improv and shoegaze/noise rock. Their album White (2024) received 5.5/6* in Klassekampen and was among the best albums of the year according to veteran music critic Arvid Skancke-Knutsen. They have performed at sold-out classical venues such as the Liège Philharmonic and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, at major folk and world music festivals like WOMAD and Viljandi, and at metal clubs and techno festivals; this past summer, they composed and performed the music for the theatre production HUND by Marianne Meløy at Gjesvær, near the North Cape.

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Silvola also plays/has played with, among others, Aasmund Nordstoga/Ingebjørg Lognvik Reinholdt (Reitir), Siskin Quartet, Erlend Viken Trio, Irene Tillung's Ti På Taket, Adjagas, Frikar, Sigrid Moldestad etc etc.

JAZZ & EXPERIMENTAL POP/ROCK

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Silvola co-produced and played on Susanna Wallumrød's Meditations On Love, which won the prestigious Spellemanprisen award in Åpen Klasse in 2024. He also plays regular duo concerts with Susanna, and plays keyboards/guitar in Susanna's quintet.

He plays in Frode Haltli's Avant Folk (who recently recorded their fourth album), and has toured in the band of norwegian trumpet-legend Nils Petter Molvær.

Juhani has two albums with music for solo prepared guitar (Wolf Hour Roundelay 2022 & Imaginary Archives 2017), and three duo-albums with drummer Jonas Sjøvaag. His first solo-album Strange Flowers (2016) blends desert blues, doom, krautrock, and electronic music, and he played in the cult experimental rock-band Sacred Harp with Jessica Sligter & Øystein Skar (2010s). He was also part of Earlybird Stringband, pioneers of Norway's bluegrass/americana scene. He recently started Juhani Silvola Trio, with Sondre Meisfjord (double bass) & Jonas Sjøvaag (drums).

Silvola has also co-produced and mixed several high-profile albums, including Highasakite's debut All That Floats Will Rain (2012).

ELECTROACOUSTIC & EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC

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Silvola’s electroacoustic work explores post-humanism, (mediated) nature, processes of growth/decay, and tensions between states of stasis & struggle. He is concerned with  deep and animated timbres & textures, idiosyncratic musical trajectories & rhythms, and phrasing in its widest sense.

His albums with electroacoustic works, Post-Biological Wildlife (2019) & The Slow Smokeless Burning of Decay (2021), were among the 20 best albums of the year at the contemporary music website 5against4. Silvola has written commissions for Nordic Music Days 2019, Pinquins, SISU, Riksscenen, & EAU etc.

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