Harald Haugaard began playing the violin at the age of 7 years old. His teacher was the local organ player in the village of Harndrup in the northwest region of the island Funen where Harald grew up.

From the very beginning folk music was his biggest inspiration. One of his earliest and greatest influences was his grandfather Johannes who was a local wood carver and traditional accordion player.

His mother Lene Sand Christensen was highly active in the folk dance environment as caller and teacher. Quite soon Haugaard began to play for her dances. The traditional Danish dance music became one of Harald’s biggest musical platforms and still today this genre appears prominently in his performances.

Together with the folk music lessons, Harald also took classical violin lessons with both styles playing important roles in his life.

In 1994 Harald was accepted at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense. Here he studied violin and choir/ensemble conducting. During his studies he changed from classical violin teachers to traditional folk fiddlers and with this experiment he became the first educated fiddler from the Academy. This special education was later the platform for the real bachelor/master education in traditional and contemporary Danish folk music which the Carl Nielsen Academy now runs. After Harald’s final exam in 1998 as fiddler and ensemble/choir conductor he was employed as a teacher with the very same course. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as the head of the folk music department.

Before and during his academic studies Harald met other young people from the very small folk music scene and began to tour with some of them which included the folk fusion band DUG.

In 1998 Haugaard & Høirup made their first performance at the European Broadcasting Unions festival for contemporary folk music. The duo was formed by former Danish National Radio producer Alan Klitgaard and this constellation turned out to be one of the most successful groups in the entire Danish music scene. With more than 600 concerts over the world, six highly reviewed albums and many awards, Haugaard & Høirup have become one of the most exported musical names from Denmark.

Besides the work with Haugaard & Høirup Harald also fronts the contemporary Danish folk-fusion band Serras. He has also worked with the singer Helene Blum, the techno-folk band Sorten Muld, scottish fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, Danish legend rock/pop star Steffen Brandt, jazz drummer Anders Mogensen, Swedish singer Sofia Karlsson and Japanese artists like Yea and Humbert Humbert.

Outside of the tours and recordings, Harald is known as a excellent and enthusiastic music teacher. Along with his full time job as professor at the Carl Nielsen Academy he teaches regularly as guest at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Vestjysk Musikkonservatorium, Ollerup Collage of Music and Song, the Royal Swedish Music Academy, Alasdair Fraiser’s Fiddle Camp (CA, USA), the Royal Music Conservatory Toronto (CAN), Musikhochschule Luzern (CH) and Folkworks Summer School, Gateshead (GB).

Harald has also participated in several theatre productions including a piece about the Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard at Odense Teater. He has played more than 800 school concerts with the ensemble Lakkelej, worked as a studio musician for a long line of Danish pop/rock bands and worked as producer for the likes of Helene Blum (DK), Ragnhild Furebotten (N), Henrik Jansberg (DK) and Humbert Humbert (JP).

As composer Harald is first of all known for his compositions for his own ensembles Haugaard & Høirup and Serras. However in December 2006 Haugaard’s first orchestral piece ‘Birth’ had its inaugural performance with Sinfonietta Fredericia. Harald performed the solo part and conducted the orchestra at the same time.

Harald has been awarded with the Danish Music Awards nine times, Rødovre Musikpris and the honour prize of the Danish Musicians Union.

Harald’s style as fiddler is playful, light and elegant but also dramatic, melancholic and sometimes diabolic. He is an engaging performer of wonderful music that is full of life.

The British world music magazine fRoots declared him one of the three best fiddlers in the world and German papers have called him ”Teufelsgeiger”. No matter what the writers describe him, Harald’s passionate love for music comes to life whenever and wherever he performs.