Musicians at Festival 2026

Wayne Barker has garnered acclaim both for his original compositions and live performances in the theater, including a Tony nomination for best original score on Peter and the Starcatcher. His numerous credits include piano scores for Beth Henley’s Laugh, an homage to silent-era slapstick; and Joe DiPietro’s Hollywood, centered around the 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor. He composed for Dame Edna Everage as well as appeared onstage as Master of the Dame’s Music for six years.

Versatile percussionist Frank Bockius specializes in jazz and is versed in medieval, flamenco, and Latin music styles. He has performed for dance and theater companies as well as in his own bands, including the jazz quintet Whisper Hot and the percussion ensemble Timpanicks. He joined the Guenter Buchwald’s Silent Movie Music Company twenty years ago and has since performed for silent films at festivals in Kyoto, Pordenone, and Sodankylä, Finland.

Conductor, composer, pianist, and violinist Guenter Buchwald is a pioneer of the renaissance in silent film music. He has accompanied silent films for thirty-eight years with a repertoire of more than three thousand titles and has conducted orchestras worldwide from Iceland to Romania, Tokyo to Zurich. In great demand as a composer, he has scored silent films as varied as Suzuki and Ota’s What Made Her Do It?, René Clair’s Paris qui dort, Chaplin’s Pawn Shop, and Murnau’s Nosferatu. A soloist known for his virtuoso improvisation, he has appeared regularly at film festivals in Berlin, Bonn, Bologna, Zurich, Pordenone, and Seattle. He is a lecturer at the Film Science Institute at the University of Zurich and resident conductor of the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra for Silent Film in Concert. He is cofounder of the Silent Movie Music Company and is musical director of Bristol’s Slapstick Silent Film Festival in England.

Eli Denson is an award-winning, LA-based composer, conductor, and orchestrator for film and television. He is currently working with renowned composer Kevin Kiner on projects such as Dark Winds, House of David, NCIS: Origins, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld. In March 2025, his acclaimed score for the film #1 Bad Dad was premiered at the Director’s Guild of America as a part of his fellowship in Film Independent’s prestigious Project Involve program. Denson’s original composition for Queen Kelly was commissioned by Indiana University Cinema through the Jon Vickers Scoring Award. Denson will conduct the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra performing his score.

The acclaimed Duo Yumeno features Yoko Reikano Kimura (koto, shamisen, and voice) and Hikaru Tamaki (cello) blending traditional Japanese music with Western classical.

Based at London’s BFI Southbank, Stephen Horne is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists working today and his music has met with acclaim worldwide. Principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments such as flute and accordion into his performances, sometimes playing them simultaneously. He has recorded music for DVD releases and television broadcasts of silent films and regularly performs internationally.

Bassist and composer Sascha Jacobsen draws on a variety of musical styles from classical to jazz and Argentine Tango. He has performed with Kronos Quartet, theatrical greats Rita Moreno, Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone, musicians Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and Raul Jaurena, among many others. Jacobsen is the founder of the San Francisco-based Musical Art Quintet, which performs his original compositions.

Multi-instrumentalist Mas Koga plays saxophone, flute, and a variety of wind instruments. Fueled with a passion for cross-cultural experience, Mas started to incorporate the Japanese shakuhachi into his music, and began his apprenticeship with master shakuhachi artist Masayuki Koga. Mas’s sound encompasses the many cultural traditions he’s been touched by, and the worldview developed though diverse life experiences.

Now celebrating its 30th year, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra revives the tradition of silent-film orchestras, scouring 1920s-era music libraries to create their signature witty, vibrant, and historically appropriate scores. Since their first performance in 1994, Mont Alto has recorded and toured widely and, all told, has compiled scores for more than 144 films. Led by composer and pianist Rodney Sauer, recipient of the Denver Film Festival’s 2023 David Shepard Career Achievement Award, the ensemble also includes Britt Swenson (violin), Brian Collins (clarinet), Yoriko Morita (cello), Bruce Barrie (cornet), and Nancy Sauer (guest Foley artist).

Over the past century, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music has become a vibrant world-class conservatory providing a well-rounded curriculum that seeks to break down barriers between the intellectual, artistic, professional, and individual, helping musicians to achieve their best possible selves.