Accompanying Nosferatu: in conversation with Hugo Max

In today's show, we're delighted to hear from Hugo Max, musician, artist and filmmaker, ahead of his HippFest debut as part of our 2024 Taste of Silents season!

Amongst various interdisciplinary achievements, Hugo performs live improvised accompaniment to silent films on solo viola, and has played chamber music at prestigious venues including the Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, and St Martin in the Fields. He has been concertmaster of the Oxford University Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oxford Baroque Players and is a lecturer on improvisation and multidisciplinary practice at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Hugo travels to Bo'ness to join us at the Hippodrome on Saturday the 2nd of November to accompany the surreal 1922 cine fable Nosferatu, the first ever screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. A quintessential example of German expressionist cinema, and one of the most famous of all silent movies, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu continues to haunt audiences today with the indisputable power of its images. Digital Content Manager Christina Webber chats to Hugo about his silent film journey, his process when accompanying silent cinema, and the magic of surviving 1910s cinema spaces.

Relevant links:

• A full transcript of this episode is available via the HippFest Blog.
• More about Hugo Max.
• More info about the upcoming Nosferatu (1922) screening.