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Sun, October 25, 2026 12:00 PMbuy tickets
Presented in partnership with the Central Florida Composers Forum. Featuring a live performance from the Fernwood String Quartet!
One hundred years after it first crept from the shadows, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu remains one of the most haunting and influential films ever made.
Released in 1922, this unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula transformed the vampire from a charismatic aristocrat into a nightmare figure, giving cinema one of its most unforgettable monsters in the form of Count Orlok, portrayed by the eerily unforgettable Max Schreck. Directed during the height of the German Expressionism movement, Nosferatu follows the doomed real-estate agent Thomas Hutter as he travels to Transylvania and unwittingly unleashes an ancient evil upon his hometown. Through distorted architecture, ghostly imagery, and groundbreaking visual effects, Murnau crafted a work that still feels unsettling a century later.
Despite nearly being destroyed following a copyright lawsuit brought by Stoker’s estate, surviving prints allowed Nosferatu to endure, inspiring generations of filmmakers from Werner Herzog to Tobe Hooper (Salem’s Lot) and Robert Eggers and helping establish the visual language of horror films. Count Orlok’s elongated shadow, skeletal features, and rat-like teeth remains of the most instantly recognizable images of the silent era.
With an all-new original new score, created by 14 members of the Central Florida Composers Forum (CF2) we welcome you to join Enzian Theater and the Fernwood String Quartet as we celebrate a landmark of silent cinema, a masterpiece of horror, and a chilling celebration of the power of paring sight and sound!
1922, 81 Minutes, Germany, Directed by F.W. Murnau, Not Rated
“It is said that the monsters we see in the movies reflect collective societal fears. Of all the classic movie monsters, vampires are the best representation of this moment in history. They are creatures fueled by the deadly sin of our time: greed. The idea of writing music for a scene from the original 1922 Nosferatu resonated deeply with me due to the current zeitgeist. Between the rats escaping the coffin at the shipyard, the organisms Dr. Bulwer presents, and the spiders in Knock’s cell, my scene is full of vampiric imagery. It also displays the absolute madness Knock experiences from being in such proximity to the unfathomable greed of Count Orlock.”
– Jeremy Umlauf (Composer)
“This was my first chance to score a silent film and I leapt at it with gusto. There is no need to muffle music to avoid covering dialogue. The film may be black and white, but the “orchestration” of the string quartet “colors” it and re-animates it. Nosferatu is, of course, the ultimate silent horror film, and it needs no praise from me. My scene, featuring the romantic couple separately — and psychically — menaced by Count Orlok and their attempts to escape him, with its crosscutting, is especially dramatic, and I look forward to seeing how my music may intensify it.”
– Erik Branch (Composer)
“My first encounter with Nosferatu the Vampyre came during music school. Werner Herzog’s haunting vision, with Klaus Kinski in the title role, completely mesmerized me. Years later, I experienced the original silent Nosferatu starring Max Schreck and began wondering what it must have felt like for audiences seeing it for the first time with live accompaniment. This project offers the rare opportunity to connect film, composition, performance, and visual storytelling — disciplines that have shaped my life as a composer, musician, actor, and artist.”
– Paul Sanders (Composer)
“The Enzian Theater is one of our favorite cultural spaces in Central Florida. There’s something wonderfully fitting about presenting a new artistic interpretation of Nosferatu in a theater that truly celebrates film as an art form. And finally, this collaboration is deeply special because of the composers involved. Over the past decade, the Fernwood String Quartet has had the privilege of performing music by many of these local composers. Along the way, they’ve become not just artistic collaborators, but dear friends. To premiere an entirely new score together — reimagining a legendary film through the voices of our own creative community — feels both exciting and profoundly meaningful!”
– Fernwood String Quartet
