BIO

Iver Cardas picked up the electric guitar at the age of 6. The son of two renowned classical musicians in his home country of Norway, he grew up with one foot in the classical music tradition – intimately familiar with the discipline and hard work needed to improve – and the other foot in rock music, eager to use the electric guitar to its fullest.

Iver has toured and recorded extensively in Norway with different groups (Øyvindland, Christopher Quartet and Rino Sivathas Experiment) alongside his undergraduate studies at the NTNU Jazz Program in Trondheim.

In 2021 Iver moved to New York City to undertake a Masters in Jazz Arts at the Manhattan School of Music and learn jazz music from the city that shaped it into what it is today. New York’s vibrant jazz scene has allowed him to develop as a musician, performer and mentor, using his creative insight to bring out the best in his peers and to encourage younger players to explore the meanings and traditions at the core of music.

Iver won First Prize at the 4th International Jarek Smietana Jazz Guitar Competition in Krakow in November 2021.

In May 2022 he performed his own arrangement of the second movement from Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, for electric guitar and symphony orchestra, the world premiere for this instrumentation.

In the summer of 2023 Iver was selected to participate in the Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, which provided an opportunity to study with greats like Jason Moran, Linda May Han Oh, Benny Green, Ingrid Jensen and Melissa Aldana.

In addition to playing gigs in and around New York City, Iver is a passionate teacher and educator in both music and language.