About

Øystein Skar is an award-winning Norwegian pianist, composer, and producer working at the intersection of electronic and contemporary classical music.

Having started classical piano lessons at the age of six, Øystein honed his improvisational and compositional skills under the guidance of his mentor, the legendary ECM pianist Misha Alperin, at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, where he studied jazz and improvisation.
After completing his studies, he spent over a decade touring and recording with some of Norway’s leading musicians, primarily in jazz and contemporary music, before shifting his focus towards pop and more electronic music.

Skar went on to spend over a decade in the pop industry, touring internationally with Highasakite, one of Norway’s most successful pop acts. During his time with the band, he contributed to multiple Norwegian Grammy-winning releases and platinum-selling albums, performed to sold-out audiences at Oslo Spektrum, appeared at Glastonbury and the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, and toured alongside acts such as Of Monsters and Men and London Grammar. He also collaborated and recorded with artists including Aurora and Sigrid, while continuing to work with leading Norwegian jazz musicians such as Per Zanussi, Jon Eberson, and Per Oddvar Johansen.

In 2023, Skar supported Deutsche Grammophon pianist Joep Beving in Oslo in collaboration with Live Nation. In 2025, he released his debut solo piano album, Hem, meaning “home” in his local dialect. The album received glowing reviews in the international press and gained significant radio airplay on stations such as KEXP and ByteFM. Skar performed the album live across Europe, including appearances on Germany’s Radio Eins and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. He also celebrated its release with a concert at the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, followed by a solo piano tour of Norway. In autumn 2025, he released the EP Stories for A, a deeply personal work dedicated to his daughter, which also received highly positive reviews.

Alongside his work as a recording artist, Skar has composed music for television and created commissioned works for leading Norwegian dance and theatre companies. His work on the acclaimed production Utafor contributed to a production that received two Hedda Awards, Norway’s highest honours in theatre.

Rooted in the Norwegian landscape and society, Skar’s music explores themes of belonging, time and presence, bringing together acoustic and electronic sound in a practice shaped by improvisation.