JOSÉ MARÍA SERRALDE RUIZ

Serralde graduated at the Faculty of Music at Mexico’s National University. He has been performing live music accompaniment for silent films since 1996 and has written about the history of film music in Mexico for academic and media publications. Serralde took advantage of the skills silent film live music provides, in order to become a multidisciplinary artists too, writing and playing music for visual arts, theatre, dance and non-conventional art forms; and even developed a career as a multimedia author working with important Mexican stage, opera directors, institutions and festivals.

He studied under the instruction of Maestro Nestor Castañeda, and under the guidance of Dr. Aurelio de los Reyes regarding film studies. Serralde wrote a thesis on Music, musicians and cinema in Mexico City (1910-1917).

In 1998 he founded the Ensamble Cine Mudo, a project that joins the talents of different musicians, for doing live music for silent film screenings with a special concern on period authenticity and stylistic inspiration. The ensemble is now conformed by a stable trio and tours in Mexico and abroad promoting this art.

Besides Mexico, Serralde’s work has been presented in Canada, Spain, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Germany, and Brazil.

He has recently produced and recorded the music for the digital restoration of the 1926 mexican silent film by Gabriel García Moreno, El Tren Fantasma to be released in DVD by Filmoteca UNAM with the music of his Ensamble Cine Mudo, and recorded the piano solo improvised score for Cineteca Nacional of the almost four-hour digital restoration of Enrique Rosas’ El Automóvil Gris, a 1919 classic mostly filmed in Mexico City. He is currently preparing the recording of two upcoming DVD releases of mexican silents: El Puño de Hierro, and Tepeyac (1917) as part of a long-term project with the National University. Additionally he has scored many mexican short films, TV series, and one feature film.

He promotes and teaches the practice of silent film music accompaniment at workshops, and lectures about music for film, media, and even embedded technology development for the arts at different institutions in Mexico.

He has been guest pianists at the Giornate since 2013, turning October into his favourite month.