Peter Bufano at work in his home studio.
For the past 25 years, Peter Bufano has been in and around the circus. Starting out as a student at Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey’s famous (and now sadly defunct) Clown College, he spent several years touring with the other merchants of mayhem in Ringling’s Clown Alley. Eventually, he took a break from the touring life to get a degree in Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston. After a few years in Los Angeles, trying out the film industry, he decided to combine his two loves and began composing and performing music for the circus.
With so much of life having gone digital, most people are surprised to find that circuses still depend on real musicians for their performances. But the circus is all about the unexpected and only living, breathing musicians can respond to whatever the folks in the center ring throw at them. For Peter, it was a perfect fit.
But after writing six full albums and countless tunes, he needed a new challenge. And it came to him in the shower one day:
Ten songs, five musicians, one album – 24 hours.
On March 15, 2011, Peter (along with the other members of Cirkestra) undertook to write, arrange and record a full-length album in one day.