Haftor Medbøe is a Norwegian-born guitarist, composer and academic living in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Haftor has released 15 albums with collaborating international artists including Jacob Karlzon (SWE), Espen Eriksen (NO) and Gunnar Halle (NO), Fabio Giachino (IT), Pete Furniss (UK) Tom Bancroft (UK)), Anneke Kampman (UK), Eva Malling (DK), Signy Jacobsdottir (IS), Konrad Wiszniewski (UK), Chris Greive (AUS).

As a composer, Haftor has scored music for numerous film and television productions including Building a Nation (Wark Clements for BBC) and the multi award-winning Tartan Short, Cry For Bobo (David Cairns). Other composition credits include the 2014 son et lumiere production, A Night at The Royal Botanical Gardens (Edinburgh), collaborative installation pieces with artists Tove Hirth, Niina Turtola, Alan Kilpatrick, Michele Marcoux, productions by choreographer/film-maker Katrina MacPherson and commissioned responses to a number of major exhibitions for the National Galleries of Scotland.

Haftor is Professor Emeritus of Jazz & Improvised Music, Edinburgh Napier University, where he gained his doctoral degree in 2013. He is an internationally published researcher in the field of new jazz studies and has presented conference papers throughout Europe. Haftor is founding Chair of the Scottish Jazz Archive, on the board of Directors for the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival and a Trustee for An Tobar and Mull Theatre. He is also co-Editor in Chief for Jazz Research Journal, Equinox Publishing.

Haftor runs his own record label, Copperfly Records and is partner in its consultancy spin-off, Copperfly Collective.