Nosferatu + Live Score

David Allison - Nosferatu

This stunning version of the German expressionist classic Nosferatu was originally successfully premiered to a sell out audience at the Glasgow Film Festival in February 2009. Now multi instrumentalist David Allison is revisiting and - if you pardon the expression - “revamping” his score using his more recent experience of live soundtracks for The Last of the Mohicans (1920) and Rob Roy (1922) which played at festivals including HippFest, Celtic Connections and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Murnau's horror film based on Bram Stoker's Dracula is set in Germany and Transylvania, but there's a good reason for David’s  live soundtrack to have a distinctly Celtic twist and a for a Scottish voice to lead us through the narrative. Back in 1888 Emily Gerard, a travel writer from Airdrie, was the first person to bring the word "nosferatu" or "undead" into western european awareness when she wrote about Transylvanian superstitions in her essay "The Land Beyond The Forest".

Bram Stoker read Emily Gerard's account and subsequently wrote "Dracula", the novel which has inspired a whole host of film directors, of which Murnau was one of the first and certainly the greatest. His Nosferatu remains the definitive horror film, and its title is a direct result of the writings of Emily Gerard.

Using live music, samples, sound effects and "the voice" of Emily Gerard as narrator played by Anne Marie Watson, David Allison’s version of Nosferatu is an entertaining, eerie and original take on one of cinema's true classics.

Quotes:
"A stunning presentation."
Edinburgh Evening News 

"I was lucky enough to catch a performance of David Allison’s brilliant reworking of FW Murnau’s 1922 horror classic... I’d urge all fans of silent films and great music to buy a ticket."
itsonitsgone.com

"Brilliant Scottish creativity rears its head." 
Aberdeen Press and Journal

"A very atmospheric soundscape. It's not the first time I've seen this version of the Dracula tale with live accompaniment but it's certainly the best." 
Freakpit