About - pan-music - Steelband Arrangements

Patrik Bernhard made his first attempts in the world of music as a pan player after his teacher’s training as a music teacher for secondary scholars and during his piano teacher education in 1986. His first experiences as an arranger were made as a player in “Pan Bern”, a big formation consisting of 50 musicians. It was for this band that he arranged the piece “Pussy, I want you back”. In the following years he was the musical leader of the steel band “Pantasia” and formed, together with Claudio Pini, “Holidays for Pans”, a 5-player formation. One of their highlights was an invitation to Trinidad and the “Pan-Jazz Festival”. As a member of the music committee PANCH, a big formation of players coming from all parts of Switzerland, he was highly involved in the good results of the formation in Trinidad during the “World Steel Band Festival 2000”. Together with Tamla Batra he arranged the overture of Franz von Suppé’s “Poet and Peasant”. In 2003/04 he was the head musical leader of PANCH reloaded, a project of the PANCH Swiss Steelband Association, in which 40 panists from all over Switzerland were engaged.
He has written arrangements for many Swiss steelbands since the beginning of pan-music and at the present time he conducts four steel bands in and around Berne, plus three youth steel bands at the high school centre Längenstein in Spiez, where he is employed as a music teacher.