Ole Thorvald Kirkeng Saeby

“I grew up in a small town in Norway called Jar, right outside of Oslo. As a kid I loved music, and my parents took me to a lot of concerts. But I never considered becoming a musician before many years later. It was first when I was 15-years-old that I started to play the bass.

In middle school, I was all about playing tennis, and my goal was to hopefully study abroad at a university on a tennis scholarship. One day I was over at my friend’s house. In the corner of his basement, I noticed a bass leaning up against the wall. My friend gave me a brief explanation on how to play it, taught me a couple of songs, and later on we formed a band together. I never forget that first experience of playing and creating music with other people. It was so fun to establish a groove and to be a working unit together, and I had never experienced anything like it. I instantly fell in love with that feeling and I wanted to do it again and again. The choice was clear. I put my tennis racket on the shelf, and got a Fender P-bass for my 16th birthday.

My Berklee experience started in the summer of 2012 when I went to Berklee’s Five-Week Summer Program. At the end of Five-Week, I was offered a scholarship for the undergraduate degree, and I knew through my experiences in the program that Berklee was the right place for me.

One of the things I enjoy most about Berklee is all the fantastic learning opportunities and resources it has to offer. Every week you get to study with an amazing faculty consisting of professional players, but you also have artists in residence like John Patitucci, Nathan East, and other legends holding clinics and master classes. Not only am I constantly inspired by Berklee’s great faculty, but also by all the other incredible students that study here.

Further down the road, after Berklee, I want to continue pursuing my goal of writing and performing my own music. During my time at Berklee, I’m trying to take advantage of all the opportunities and soak up all the knowledge I possibly can in order to develop my craft and grow as a musician. I am now a third-semester [student] majoring in performance and songwriting, and studying here has honestly been the greatest time of my life.”

Watch Ole Thorvald Kirkeng Saeby playing bass on Bernhoft’s “Streetlights” here: