Günter Buchwald is one of the pioneers of the renaissance of silent film music and one of the most experienced practitioners in the world. He has accompanied silent films for over 25 years with a repertoire of more than 1300 titles. He is director of the Silent Movie Music Company and conducts the Freiburg Filmharmonic Orchestra, which he founded in1992. His wide experience in music from Baroque to Jazz allows him a huge stylistic variety in musical improvisation. Since 1984 he has appeared regularly at film festivals in Berlin, Bonn, Pordenone, Zurigo (and others) and special events in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Tel Aviv and Munich.

In 1992 Buchwald started a second career as conductor of classical music as well as film music and has worked with the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica Banatul Timisoara, Philharmonic Orchestra Freiburg, Zuger Sinfonietta and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Particularly reknowned for his work with Paul Wegner's classic film The Golem, (1920) he has worked in collaboration with the 'King of Klezmer' Giora Feidman and the Arditti String Quartett, with whom he performed the premiere at the Vienna Silent Film Festival in 1997. He since worked with many different musicians for live performances of The Golem.

In 1998 he restored the music for Eisenstein's classic film, Battleship Potemkin, (1925) originally composed by Nicolai Krijukov in 1950 and performed at its premiere.

He composed the music for the Japanese silent classic Nani ga konojo o so saseta ka (1930) which was restored in 1996 and had a hugely successful premiere as the opening gala of the Tokyo Film Festival in 1997. For the Kyoto Film Festival 1999 he composed a score for Murnau´s Faust (1926) for choir and quartet. He is currently working on a score for chamber orchestra for the Swiss-French silent film La Vocation d'André Carel which will be premiered on ARTE in May 2005.