Berner Symphonie-Orchester

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The Berner Symphonie-Orchester (German; French: L'Orchestre Symphonique de Berne; English: Berne Symphony Orchestra) is one of Switzerland's major orchestras and consists of about 100 musicians. It was founded in 1877 in the capital Berne.

Reaching beyond Switzerland from the 1930s, the fame of the orchestra later attracted guest conductors including Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernest Ansermet, Hans Knappertsbusch, Ferenc Fricsay, Rafael Kubelík, Günter Wand, Kurt Sanderling, Horst Stein, Yuri Ahronovitch and Eliahu Inbal. From 1990 to 2004, its principal conductor was Russian Dmitri Kitajenko from St. Petersburg. Previous music directors include Charles Dutoit, Gustav Kuhn, Paul Kletzki and Peter Maag. Another young Russian, Andrey Boreyko, has taken over as principal conductor from 2005/2006.

The Bern Symphony Orchestra gives around 40 symphony concerts each season. It also acts as the opera orchestra for the City Theatre of Berne.

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