Bunka was born in
Frankfurt on 2 December 1951. In 1979, Embryo traveled overland to India with three buses and their instruments. The tour was documented in the movie
Vagabunden Karawane. Besides the guitar, his second instrument was the Arabic
oud, which he studied mainly in
Egypt. Having spent long periods of time there, he often played in the band of Egyptian singer and movie actor
Mohamed Mounir, In 1994, Bunka presented his
ethno jazz project
Color me Cairo, featuring Malachi Favors of
Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Egyptian musicians
Fathy Salama, Hosam Shakir and Khaled Goma at the
Berlin Jazz Festival, curated by
George Gruntz. The same line-up was recorded by
Enja Records, with
Rolling Stone magazine writing: "Bunka gets fame in a growing musical diaspora as 'best oud-player north of Mekka'." Bunka was known for his artistic collaboration with German and international musicians, such as the German world music groups Embryo,
Dissidenten and Jisr, but also with jazz musicians
Mal Waldron,
Charlie Mariano and
Malachi Favors, as well as with Indian and Egyptian performers Trilok Gurtu,
Ramesh Shotham, Fathy Salama and others. German music critic
Ralf Dombrowski wrote about Bunka's 2004 record
Orientación with fellow musicians Luis Borda and Jost Heckler: "He is one of the first European musicians who dared to seriously explore the oud and liberated it from exoticism and
Orientalism." During his 50-year career, Bunka recorded and played concerts with numerous musical groups, and also composed soundtracks for movies. A few weeks before his death, he played with the Munich-based group Jisr (Arabic for 'bridge') at concerts in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Bunka died of
cancer on 12 June 2022, in Munich at the age of 70, with both Egyptian and German newspapers publishing
obituaries. ==Awards==