Musicians at Festival 2024

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.

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.

Steinway’s Young Artist of 2010, Utsav Lal made his debut at the age of eighteen with his rendition of Indian ragas on the piano, stunning the world with his innovative handling of Hindustani classical music on a Western instrument. Often referred to as the “Raga Pianist,” he has gained international recognition, performing everywhere from Ireland to Singapore, Germany to Kuwait, and beyond.

The Matti Bye Ensemble seeks that magical, emotional alchemy between music and images, playing a wide variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, musical saw and percussion. It is led by award-winning film composer Matti Bye, who has accompanied silent movies at the Swedish Film Institute since 1989. In addition to Bye, the ensemble members at SFSFF 2024 are Kristian Holmgren, Lotta Johanson, and Laura Naukkarinen.

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).

Pianist Donald Sosin has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His scores are heard regularly on Turner Classic Movies and his music accompanies films on more than fifty DVD releases.