Frida Siegrist Oliver (born 1998) began playing the violin at the age of five and switched to the viola at eight. Her soloist debut at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert at the age of twelve marked the start of her career. The same year, she became the youngest person ever admitted to the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra’s talent program.
Frida has also been a member of the Perlman Music Program since 2013. From 2018 to 2021, she was part of Konstknekt, a chamber music program with mentors from the Berlin Philharmonic, and she has performed at festivals such as Oslo Chamber Music Festival, The Winter Festival in Bergstaden, and Rosendal Chamber Music Festival.
Frida graduated with academic honors from The Juilliard School in 2020, where she studied with Heidi Castleman and Carol Rodland.
Born into a musical family in Stavanger, she has worked as a substitute musician with the Stavanger Symphonic Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic since the age of sixteen. She served as principal violist of the Risør Festival Strings from 2021 to 2023 and has given recitals for the Edvard Grieg Society in New York, the International Viola Congress in Rotterdam, and Dextra Musica at Blaafarveværket.
In January 2023, she completed a master’s degree with an orchestral specialization at the Zurich University of the Arts, graduating with distinction. As part of her studies, she held an internship with the Philharmonia Zürich and simultaneously a long-term substitute position there from 2022-2025.
After moving to Switzerland in 2020, she has performed as a substitute in many prestigious orchestras, including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Camerata Bern and Berliner Philharmoniker. Frida has also served as guest principal violist with the Arctic Philharmonic, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, and the Südwestdeutsche Kammerphilharmonie Pforzheim.
She is also active as a teacher and, despite her young age, has already taught for several years at both Valdres Sommersymfoni and Ringerike Sommersymfoni.
Starting in 2026, Frida has been invited to teach in the Gnist program under Valdres Sommersymfoni, a national talent program for the most motivated string players under thirteen, run by “Norsk Ressurssenter for Klassisk Musikk”.
While at Juilliard, she took pedagogy courses and worked as a teaching assistant in music theory at Juilliard, as well as violin/viola teacher at the Elite Academy in New Jersey.