Il Cinema Ritrovato is also one of the major international festivals of silent cinema. Rediscovering silent film and bringing it back to life also means rediscovering, reconstructing, improvising, and composing the music that accompanies it. The finest silent film musicians, established masters as well as young talents, have always come to Bologna from all over the world. Their personal quests for that magical harmony, or the perfect tension between image and music, are among the reasons why every screening at Il Cinema Ritrovato is a unique and special experience.
Laura Agnusdei is a saxophonist and electronic musician from Bologna. Her solo project explores the possibilities of electroacoustic composition, creating soundscapes within which the sax remains the main narrative voice.
Jacopo Battaglia is a visionary artist dedicated to exploring the boundaries of sound and rhythm. With a deep passion for sound experimentation, he has made research and innovation his main focus, blending acoustic and electronic elements to create unique and immersive soundscapes.
Frank Bockius studied at the conservatory in Trossingen, Germany. He works as a drums and percussion teacher and as a freelance musician. For many years he toured with the jazz quintet Whisper Hot and the percussion band Timpanicks.
Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for 40 years throughout the UK and at film festivals around the world. He now has a very fruitful relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with his acclaimed orchestral scores for Hitchcock’s silent Blackmail, Asquith’s Underground, Chaplin’s Easy Street and Fairbanks’s Robin Hood, as well as his recent concert drama of The Hound of the Baskervilles for BBC4 starring Mark Gatiss.
Timothy Brock specialises as a conductor in concert works of the early 20th century and live performances of silent film. As a score preservationist, his work includes the restoration of Shostakovich’s New Babylon, Erik Satie’s Entr’acte, Saint-Saëns’s The Assassination of Duke DeGuise, and Wolfgang Zeller’s Vampyr.
Photo © Anna Drvnik
Matti Bye has been the permanent silent film pianist at the Svenska Filminstitutet since 1989. He has written a series of innovative scores for such early Swedish silent film classics as Phantom Carriage by Victor Sjöström, Häxan by Benjamin Christensen and Gösta Berling Saga by Mauritz Stiller, as well as countless other silent films.
Luca Cavina is a self-taught musician and composer, founding member of Zeus!, Arto and Calibro35. Luca Cavina has also played with Giovanni Truppi, Comaneci, Transgender, Craxi and Incident On South Street
Antonio Coppola began to study the piano at a very early age. In 1965 he enrolled in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, and followed courses in piano performance, composition and orchestral conducting until 1977.
André Desponds is a pianist, composer, arranger and lecturer in improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts. He has been working as a composer for theatre, ballet, advertising and radio, and he has accompanied silent films since 1978.
Giuseppe Franchellucci, cellist, works in the fields of contemporary and experimental music and improvisational practice. He has performed with various ensembles in events such as Nuova Consonanza in Rome, 900 and beyond in Modena with Maestro Enzo Porta, at the Ravenna Festival under Maestro Penderecki.
Daniele Furlati, pianist and composer, has a degree in composition, piano and arrangement. He earned two diplomas with honours in courses in advanced music for film, taught by Ennio Morricone and Sergio Miceli at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.
Stephen Horne, based at London’s BFI Southbank, has recorded music for DVD releases, TV screenings and online presentations of silent films.
Photo © Patrick Argirakis
Julie Linquette, known as DJ’itane, is a puppeteer, musician, fortune teller and barker. Of gypsy origin, her parents were street vendors selling chips in village squares in northern France and southern Belgium.
Silvia Mandolini was born in Montreal in 1970. After graduating as a violinist at the Conservatory of her hometown, she continued her studies firstly at McGill University and then at the G.
Meg Morley, Australian-born London-based pianist, composer and improviser, creates music within diverse artistic genres (silent film, contemporary dance and ballet, solo piano, contemporary jazz ensembles and electronic music).
Ramon Moro lives and works in Turin, Italy. He composes music and plays trumpet and flugelhorn. Over the past twenty-five years, he has worked in the fields of experimental jazz, pure improvisation, support for rock bands, interventions on pop and singer-songwriter albums.
Laura Naukkarinen is a composer, producer and musician from Finland. She plays under the moniker Subatlantti, in IAX, and is a visiting member of The Matti Bye Ensemble.
Maud Nelissen is a Dutch composer and pianist who has particularly dedicated herself to the creation of musical accompaniment for silent films. She worked in Italy with Charlie Chaplin’s last music arranger Eric James. Since then she has been performing at festivals and special events in Europe, America and Asia.
Simone Nicoletta, the Principal Clarinet of the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna since 2015, cooperates regularly with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, …
Photo © Matilde Piazzi
Stefano Pilia is a guitarist, bass player, producer and composer born in Genoa and now living in Bologna, where he also graduated from the G.B Martini Conservatory. His work takes shape from instrumental performance practice and around the processes of recording and sound production.
Eduardo Raon, Portuguese composer and musician, is the author of numerous projects for cinema, animation, theatre, dance and the arts. In particular, he composed the music for several silent films, including Ernst Lubitsch’s The Doll, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm – The Symphony of Donbass.
James Shelby, originally from San Francisco and now based in Bologna, has enjoyed a five-decade career as a pianist. Since 1975, he has brought his improvisational musical skills to a wide range of performances, including silent cinema, improvisational theatre, dance ensembles, and jazz vocals.
Photo © Ludovico Brancaccio
Michele Signore plays the violin, mandolin and mandocello, as well as being a composer, arranger and music producer. Since 1984 he has been part of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, as violinist and composer.
John Sweeney has played for silent film since 1990, starting at Riverside Studios in London and subsequently playing at many venues in Britain including the National Film Theatre, the Barbican Cinema, Broadway in Nottingham, the Imperial War Museum, and Watershed in Bristol.
Fabiana Sommariva is an oboist (English horn) graduated from the Conservatory of Rovigo. She collaborates with the Conservatory orchestra and she worked on the soundtrack of the film Quel posto nel tempo, a production for which she was recording assistant as well.
Paolo Spaccamonti is a Turin-based guitarist and composer. His discography sums up solo albums and collaborative works with both Italian and international musicians, such as Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Stefano Pilia, Roberto “Tax” Farano (Negazione).
Gabriel Thibaudeau, born in 1959, Canadian composer, pianist and conductor, studied piano in Montreal at the Vincent D’Indy music school and composition at l’Université de Montreal. He started work at the age of 15 as a pianist for ballets.
Alice Zecchinelli is a composer, conductor, and multi-instrumentalist musician. After studying Classical Philology and Philosophy, she specialized in Film Scoring, further refining her craft alongside internationally renowned musicians.
