ensemble proton bern: One Night Only

ensemble proton bern is one of the leading Swiss ensembles for contemporary music performance. In this one-night-only show in San Francisco, they will perform works by the Swiss composers Walter Feldmann, Tobias Krebs, Katharina Rosenberger and Jürg Wyttenbach as well as the stand-out compositions from their recent residences at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. ensemble proton bern is on tour on the West Coast of the USA, bringing their own brand of new-music-making to the Pacific. Since the ensemble’s inception in 2010, proton has stormed onto the scene with a fresh and refined take on contemporary music performance. The instrumentation is one-of-a-kind (4 winds + 4 strings) and employs under utilised instruments, particularly oboe, bassoon and harp; the ensemble proudly promotes writing for auxiliary instruments, theatrical performance and non-concert music. At last count, the group’s given over 90 concerts, played over 220 works by at least 140 composers, including over 130 world premieres in Switzerland, France, Germany, Russia and now the USA. Among their composer ‘alumni’: Samuel Andreyev, Brian Ferneyhough, Andreas Frank, Beat Furrer, Christian Henking, Heinz Holliger, Klaus Huber, Michael Jarrell, Ezko Kikoutchi, Hans Ulrich Lehmann, Dominique Schafer, Annette Schmucki and Gérard Zinsstag… Not bad for a group less than 10 years old!