ARCHIVE: Nosferatu with live score by Rita and Robbie Perry

Nosferatu with Live Score by Rita & Robbie Perry was presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Irland as part of Esker Arts' Eagla Fest 2025 season

Saturday 25th October, 8pm

Dir: F. W. Murnau, Germany, 1922, 89 mins

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s 1922 silent film Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens is not only one of the most canonical films of German Expressionist cinema, it also established one of modern horror film’s most enduring archetypes: the vampire. In one of the first adaptations of Dracula, gone is the suave, moustachioed count of Stoker’s novel, replaced instead by Murnau’s Count Orlok, immortally embodied by actor Max Shreck as a bald and bulbous ghoul whose emaciated fingers cast fearful, flickering shadows.

The original score which will accompany this screening has been a passion project for Rita Perry & Robbie Perry for its connection to Bram Stoker and its history in the evolution of Dracula’s story. Performed live, the duo’s music highlights how Stoker’s work takes shape and life over a hundred years after Dracula’s publication. In the work, the artists pay due respect to both Stoker, the original story-teller and to the cinematic vision of Murnau, celebrating the intersection of literature, cinema and music.

Bios

Rita Perry and Robbie Perry have collaborated together for over a decade producing an eclectic body of work, influenced by their experience and diverse interests. Formed by their familial relationship and a shared love for musical experimentation, the duo have turned their focus to the cinematic era of German Expressionism. In 2023, they began composing an original score to Murnau’s Nosferatu which premiered as a live score in the 2023 Clones Film Festival (CFF). Its reception at the festival was a huge success and was followed with an enthusiastic new commission for the 2024 CFF and performed at the 2024 Bram Stoker Festival.

Photography by Núria Roldós