Nik Bärtsch's Ronin

Ronin were samurai who, being masterless, were both free and poor. And we can be sure that the pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch did not just happen to name his group after them. Having lived in Japan and studied Philosophy, Linguistics and Musicology, he founded the Ronin quartet in 2001.

Today, four hundred live appearances later, the combo has truly honed its superlative repertoire of improvised and composed numbers.

Their focus on poetry and on producing the greatest possible result with the most minimal of means, has created a unique fusion of Zen and Funk — something half-way “between Kurosawa and James Brown”!