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KARL ORVIK​ is a Boston-based violinist and violist, and leads an active life there as a performer and teacher.  He has been featured in solo and chamber recitals throughout the United States, as well as in Turkiye, Norway, Canada and South Korea. An enthusiastic chamber musician, he was the founding violinist of Trio Klaritas, which made its Carnegie Hall debut in 2018 performing a program of works by living composers. Trio Klaritas has also appeared on concert series in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and at the Tanglewood Music Center, as well as in a 2010 concert tour of South Korea. 

Mr. Orvik concertizes frequently with the New Hampshire Trio, a resident faculty ensemble at the University of New Hampshire, and he recently traveled to Turkiye with UNH colleagues to perform and give masterclasses at both the Istanbul University State Conservatory and Istanbul Technical University.  In addition, Mr. Orvik  has appeared in multiple recordings and live radio broadcasts as a member of many other ensembles, including the Stonehill Trio, the Boston Public Quartet, PresentMusic, the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, L’Ensemble Portique, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He has performed as a concerto soloist with the Bangor, Racine and Green Bay Civic symphonies, and has extensive experience as a concertmaster and section player with regional orchestras in New England and the Midwest.

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Mr. Orvik has taught violin and viola in numerous settings since 1997, and works easily with students of all ages and abilities.  Currently he is a professor of violin and viola at the University of New Hampshire, as well as Chair of the string department and violin/viola faculty at Powers Music School in Belmont, MA.  From 2011-2023 Mr. Orvik enjoyed a long relationship with the historic Community Music Center of Boston, where in addition to teaching he held several administrative roles, including most recently that of Associate Director of CMCB's Community Music School.  Previously, Mr. Orvik has served as Adjunct Professor of Violin and Viola at Stonehill College, Wisconsin Lutheran College and Alverno College, and from 2000-2005 he was Director and violin/viola faculty at the Milwaukee Center for Strings.  

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He has a wide level of experience teaching in pre-college classroom environments, including multiple public schools in Boston, Dedham and Cambridge, MA.  As a Resident Musician with  musiConnects from 2014-2018, he taught private lessons, chamber music and orchestra classes to students in the Mattapan and Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston.  He was also the lead violin teacher at the Adams School in East Boston from 2011-2021, and has taught in similar roles at the Perry School in South Boston and the Conservatory Lab Charter School in the Brighton neighborhood.  

Mr. Orvik particularly enjoys coaching chamber and orchestral ensembles, and has served as faculty and guest artist at many summer music festivals, including Point Counterpoint in Vermont, the Chamber Music Workshop at UNC-Asheville in North Carolina, the Youth and Muse festival in Boston, and both the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Alaska. In demand as an adjudicator and clinician, Mr. Orvik has led recent master classes at the Rivers Conservatory and the Cape Conservatory, and has over twenty years of experience as a conductor and coach with several youth symphonies and string ensembles in Boston, Milwaukee and Green Bay.  He has been published in the ASTA Journal, and in 2015 he designed The Practice Partner, a popular and accessible lesson assignment and practice record notebook.  A devout believer in the benefits of scale practice, he is also the author of ​New Scale Method,​ an innovative scale book for advanced violinists and violists.

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A native of Canada, Mr. Orvik began violin lessons at age eight with Philip Frank in Toronto, and later studied with Eduard Minevich in London, Ontario, and Stephen Kecskemethy and Ray Shows in Portland, Maine. He has studied chamber music with members of the Muir, Manhattan, Cleveland and Cavani string quartets, and was awarded a fellowship to study with the Fine Arts Quartet at the Sorkin International Institute of Chamber Music in Milwaukee. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Lawrence University, studying with Calvin Wiersma, and his Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his principal teacher was Stephen Majeske. In 2012, Mr. Orvik received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in violin performance from Boston University, where he was a student of renowned violinist and pedagogue Roman Totenberg.