Bente Hemsing is a trained instrumentalist and violin pedagogue from Østlandets Music Conservatory in Oslo. She also has a degree in Folklore Studies and a master's degree in Musicology from the University of Oslo, in addition to leadership training. She worked for several years as a performing musician in the Valdres folk music group and as an archivist in the Valdres folk music archive. Bente has undertaken freelance assignments for NRK, worked as an orchestral musician in professional symphony orchestras, and toured with Rikskonsertane both in Norway and India. For a period, she was a regular violinist in the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Oslo Baroque Orchestra.
Regarding her educational work, she has provided instruction in cultural schools, secondary education, at the Barratt Due Institute of Music, various orchestral and folk music seminars, and has also served as a lecturer on traditional music at the university level. Bente is also frequently called upon to judge competitions and music scholarship juries.
Bente has received several awards, such as the "Andris Dahles Memorial Prize" for hardanger fiddle playing (1998), and in 2004, she released the critically acclaimed CD "Solé sprett" featuring her own arrangements of folk music from Valdres.
With her special aptitude for teaching, talent development, and, not least, the communication of musical joy, she is a sought-after educator. In recent years, she has worked as the Managing Director of the East Norwegian Folk Music Center, a competence center within the MØST network for professional musicians in Eastern Norway. She currently serves as the director of the cultural school in Etnedal municipality and continues to work as a freelance musician and educator specializing in the hardanger fiddle and violin.