Peter Bufano

Peter Bufano is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He's written original scores for Hideaway Circus' "Stars Above", The Big Apple Circus (2019 Production, "40th Anniversary" and "Grand Tour"), The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus ("Flatbed Follies", "Quarantine Livestream", "Cardboard and Duct Tape Spectacular", "My Last Circus", and "From The Gutter To The Glitter"), Circus Smirkus ("Alice", "Pinocchio", "Zoot Suit Caper", "Midnight at the Museum", and "Vaudeville") ,  Spiegelworld ("Nocturne" NYC, Edinburgh, and Los Angeles Productions) and Parallel Exit ("The Artist Will Be With You In A Moment" and "Sunset Circus"), and "Mr. Swindles Traveling Peculiarium". His 2011 score for the PBS documentary Circus Dreams won an ASCAP Plus award.

Bufano is the founder of Cirkestra, a circus pit-band for which he composed and produced seven releases. The troupe has toured the United States performing hundreds of shows in and out of the big top including performances at The Kennedy Center, The Seattle Art Museum, and The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 

 

His score for the David Gallo short "[fat] life" was released in 2022. IMDB calls it "a magnificent score".

Bufano scored the feature documentary Circus Kid ( on AMC/Sundance Now) which chronicles the early years of the Pickle Family Circus and its founder Larry Pisoni .  His collaboration with director Lorenzo Pisoni came about through his work as an accordionist on Las Vegas' "Nocturne" , an immersive theater production from Speigelworld in which they both performed.

Peter's quirky instrumentals can be heard on Network and Cable TV around the globe. Shows such as NBC's America's Got Talent and The Today Show have featured his work.  

Bufano teaches Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston where he was a recipient of the 2018-2019 Newbury Comics Faculty Fellowship. He created The Circus Music Workshop. He's a graduate of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College, Berklee College of Music, and The ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop at NYU.