Born in 1984, Florian C. Reithner completed his musical education as a composer, music theorist, and organist at the Diözesankonservatorium St. Pölten and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Concert tours as a conductor, pianist, organist, and composer have taken him to many countries in Europe, Asia and North America. For several years now, Reithner has also dedicated himself to the scoring of films, including for the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation. He works as a silent film pianist, composer, and producer of film scores for Austria’s Filmarchiv. Films he has scored include DER LETZTE MANN, DER KILOMETERFRESSER, DER ZINKER, DIE BIENE MAJA, and ANGST. On the occasion of the 2015 UFA Film Nights, Bertelsmann had commissioned Reithner to create a new score for F. W. Murnau’s last film TABU, and premiered his composition with a specially assembled orchestra at the UFA Film Nights.
Reithner will present his new composition of the music for DER BERG DES SCHICKSALS at this year’s UFA Film Nights with the Metropolis Orchestra Berlin, accompanying the orchestra on the organ himself.
In 2017, the Metropolis Orchestra Berlin became the first professional cinema orchestra in Berlin’s cinematic and musical landscape since the silent film era. Founded by conductor Burkhard Götze and Berlin musicians with a passion for silent films, the ensemble has become a hallmark of the capital’s silent-film scene, set standards in actively preserving and promoting silent film, and heralded the renaissance of a forgotten musical genre – historical cinema music. New compositions are also created exclusively for the orchestra.
After establishing a regular series of orchestra-accompanied silent film at Berlin’s Babylon Theater in 2017 and 2018, the Metropolis Orchestra Berlin can now be enjoyed at Berlin’s Theater at the Delphi, Zeughauskino or Heimathafen Neukölln. In September 2019, the orchestra made its debut at the ZOO PALAST on the occasion of “100 Years of Cinematic History at the Zoo.” The orchestra regularly receives invitations from renowned film festivals such as the Filmfest Braunschweig, the Film+Musikfest Bielefeld, the Filmkunstfest MV in Schwerin, and the International Silent Film Festival in Bonn.
