Ivar Grydeland is a Norwegian musician primarily active in the field of contemporary improvised music. His main instruments are the guitar and pedal steel guitar. Over the past 25 years, Grydeland has toured extensively across Europe, Asia, and North and South America with his main improvising ensembles, Huntsville and Dans les Arbres, as well as with the Norwegian artist Hanne Hukkelberg.
He has released or contributed to more than 40 albums as a solo artist, with his main groups, and through various other projects on labels such as ECM, Hubro, Rune Grammofon, and Sofa—a label he co-founded with percussionist Ingar Zach in 1999. In addition to his work with Dans les Arbres and Huntsville, Grydeland has performed on stage and recorded in the studio with artists such as Henry Kaiser, Paul Lovens, Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, Tony Oxley, Yumiko Tanaka, Tetuzi Akiyama, and others.
Grydeland is also a professor of improvisation at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
