Günter A. Buchwald is one of the pioneers of the renaissance of silent film music and one of its most experienced practitioners. He has accompanied silent films for almost 50 years, with a repertoire of more than 3,600 titles. His extensive experience in music ranging from Baroque to Jazz allows him to explore a remarkable stylistic variety in his musical improvisations.
Since 1984, he has regularly performed at film festivals in Berlin (Berlinale, International Film Festival), Bonn, Pordenone (“Le giornate del cinema muto”), Zürich, Munich and at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. He plays piano, violin and viola, sometimes alternating between them during the same performance.
In 1985, he founded the Silent Movie Music Company, of which Frank Bockius has been a member since 1991. Specialising in silent film accompaniment, Buchwald also conducts symphony orchestras. Since 1998, he has been Associate Conductor of the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he has premiered several of his own compositions and film scores, including Black Forest Mountain Symphony (2013), as well as his scores for Murnau’s Faust and Nosferatu, the restored version of the silent film classic Casanova (2019) and Charles Chaplin’s The Immigrant (2024). In 2026, his orchestral score for Buster Keaton’s Go West (1925) was premiered in Freiburg. ARTE has also broadcast his score for the Japanese classic What Made Her Do It?, directed by Shigeyoshi Suzuki (1929).
Since 2020, he has conducted the Octuor de France for Cinema-in-Concert and has been Musical Director of the annual Slapstick Festival, as well as conducting the Babylon Cinema Orchestra, Berlin.
Among other distinctions, Günter Buchwald received the Cultural Award of the City of Freiburg in 2012 and the Ad-Hoc Award of the Beethovenfest Bonn.
Ensemble improCinema
Frank Bockius studied percussion at the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany. He founded his own jazz quintet, Whisper Hot, and the percussion ensemble Timpanicks, and has worked with dance companies and theatres, performing baroque, flamenco and Latin music. He has participated in numerous festivals around the world, including in Italy, Japan, Finland, England, Turkey, the USA, Germany and Switzerland. He joined Günter Buchwald’s Silent Movie Music Company more than 25 years ago.
Romano Todesco began studying accordion at the age of six and later took up the double bass. He graduated from the “G. Tartini” Conservatory in Trieste in 1990. He has performed at numerous festivals and concerts, playing classical, jazz, contemporary and ethnic music alongside renowned musicians. He is one of the founders of Zerorchestra, an ensemble specialising in the musical accompaniment of silent films. Todesco has composed music for theatre productions including Padre selvaggio by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Letture sul Conde by Claudio Magris. He has also collaborated with numerous actors, including Carla Manzon, Rita Maffei, Fabiano Fantini and Giorgio Monte.