Gisle Torvik was born June 2, 1975. He grew up in Tørvikbygd in Hardanger, Norway.
In the spring of 1992, he found an old Hoefner guitar up in the attic. A bit of plastic became a pick, and Gisle decided to become a solo-guitarist. His father told him to learn some chords, but Gisle only wanted to play solos in Knopflers spirit and therefore refused to play chords. After figuring out his fathers advice of learning the harmonics was a good idea, he learned the strings and chords.
After only 6 months Torvik found himself on stage with his guitar in front of 300 people. He had practiced every spare moment, but his fingers still shook. Luckily, with the help of a great audience, the young guitarist came out from his performance with a desire for more. The band kept playing in local arenas throughout the next years.
In 1994 Gisle started studying music at Sunnhordaland folkehøyskole. It was here he decided that he would become a professional guitarist. The year after he started a three-year education at Nordic Institute of Stage and Studio, majoring in guitar and composition.
After playing in some bands, his first solo album with his own band was released in 1999. Sigmund Groven, Petter Wettre, Frode Berg, Endre Christiansen and Torstein Lofthus contributed to “Naked without a Guitar” becoming a reality. Along with the artist career he has always had different sideprojects and been a working musician in a broad range of styles like Soul, Pop, Singer Songwriter, Heavy Rock, African and many more.
His ability to adapt to a wide range of styles can be heard on his album «frozen moment» featuring Hilde Norbakken, released in 2009 to good reviews. This was his first album combining vocals and guitar as lead «voices». In march 2011 his song «I remember» from this album reached the semi-final of ISC International Songwriting Competition. In 2011, after been having a sponsor deal with Ibanez for many years, his been offered an endorsement from the the American brand Sadowsky guitars. In 2011 he releases a solo version of his beautiful melody Tranquil Fjord on youtube. The video was shot in an old closed hydroplant from 1918 in Hardanger. It received a lot of attention and is still rated as #1 at bestjazzvideos.com.
In october 2013 he finally releases his first trio album with Audun Ellingsen og double bass and Hermund Nygård on the drums. The album Tranquil Fjord has earned incredible reviews all over the world. In autumn 2013 Torvik also toured a lot international as well as nationally.
Torvik works as a guitarist, producer, arranger and composer, and even as a mixing engineer. He did the final mix of Tranqul Fjord himself. Gisle is a frequently used instructor in guitar, harmony, arranging, composing, music production and music theory in different schools.
First and foremost Torvik is considered as a one of Scandinavias most talented jazzguitarists, but he likes to play all types of music and are not afraid of working in a broad range of genres.
He is the guitarist and the producer of the new up and coming band Calvert. He has played concerts from solo format to big ensembles all over the world, and worked with great jazzmusicians such as Bendik Hofseth, Eddie Gomez, Tony Moreno, Sigmund Groven, Emil Viklicky, Petter Wettre, Øystein Sevåg, John Stowell, Karl Seglem and many more.