Biography
Haftor Medbøe is Professor of Music and lectures across a broad portfolio of subjects within the School of Arts and Creative Industries. He is founding chair of the Scottish Jazz Archive and holds a position on the Board of Directors, Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival. Since gaining his Doctoral degree in 2013, Haftor has been published internationally and presented his research on creative communities and cultural identity in jazz at conferences and colloquia across Europe.
Prior to being appointed full-time lecturer at Edinburgh Napier in 2008, Haftor enjoyed a twenty-year career in the music industries as a composer for film, television, theatre and contemporary dance for, amongst others, Channel 4, ITV, Tern TV, Scottish Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre. Other composition credits include the 2014 son et lumiere production, A Night at The Botanics, collaborative installation pieces with artists Alan Kilpatrick and Michele Marcoux, dance/video productions by choreographer/film-maker Katrina MacPherson and a series of commissioned responses to exhibitions curated by the National Galleries of Scotland. Past professional appointments include Lead Tutor for the Princes’ Trust, Music Industry Consultant to Scottish Cultural Enterprise, Musician in Residence for The Queen’s Hall and Drake Music Scotland and project designer/tutor for Artlink Scotland.
Haftor remains active as a musician and composer on the international jazz circuit having released numerous albums with his eponymous group and together with other international musical collaborators. Haftor tours extensively in the UK and abroad and runs his own record label, Copperfly.