BIO

Raphael is recognized for innovative and highly sophisticated orchestral writing and arranging, memorable, singable themes and motivic long-form writing for cinema, and for his extensive experience working with live ensembles, including full-sized orchestras. Combining a thoroughly modern ear with a deep knowledge of classical orchestral music, and combining an ease with modern music technology with a more traditional, piano-and-paper-first approach to writing, Raphael has won numerous film scoring awards, including Best Score at the Hollywood Art and Movie Awards in 2021, for the German cycling documentary Tour du Togo.

 

Raphael is known for creating scores that not only powerfully support a film’s narrative, but give a film a distinctive musical language. His music works beautifully as underscore while effortlessly retaining narrative coherence when performed as concert music or when experienced on a soundtrack album.

Raphael is also an accomplished pop music producer and arranger, having created arrangements for pop songs placed in films by UK singer-songwriters Katey Brooks and Emaé, and arrangements for Austrian singer-songwriter Nana Falkner as well as German cabaret artist Annette Kruhl.

Starting with classical piano training in early childhood, Raphael’s musical education experience includes an internship with well-known German film composer Gert Wilden, Jr., and an assistantship with Golden-Globe-nominated composer Alex Heffes (Mandela) at the Synchron Recording Stage in Vienna during the recording of Heffes’s score for The Arctic.

Raphael also holds a degree in media composition from Triagon Academy in Cologne, and a professional certificate in composing and orchestrating for film and television from the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Raphael is fluent in both English and German, and functional in French.