Henning Lohner

Henning Lohner (born 17 July 1961) is a German-American composer and filmmaker. He is best known for his film scores written as a long-standing member of Hans Zimmer’s music cooperative Remote Control Productions. Lohner has written scores to various international films, among them The Ring Two and Incident at Loch Ness. Additionally, he has authored documentaries and art films, and has gained international recognition as creator of the Active Images media art projects. Background and education Born to German emigrant parents, Henning Lohner was raised near Palo Alto, California, where his father Edgar Lohner taught Comparative Literature at Stanford University and his mother Marlene Lohner taught German Literature. Lohner has one brother, Peter, who is a lawyer turned writer-producer for film and television. Lohner returned to Germany to study musicology, art history, and Romanic languages at Frankfurt University, from which he graduated as Master of Arts in 1987. In 1982, he took a year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, studying Jazz Improvisation with Gary Burton and Film Scoring with Jerry Goldsmith and David Raksin. In 1985, Lohner was awarded a grant for music composition at the Centre Acanthes to study with Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, who became his lifelong mentor. Lohner became assistant to German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1984; Lohner was introduced to the visual media working on Stockhausen’s opera Licht at La Scala in Milan. Subsequently, he worked in France in 1989 as musical advisor and assistant director to Louis Malle on the film May Fools (1990). Apprenticeships on Steve Reich’s multi-media oratorio The Cave (1990) and with Giorgio Strehler on his theater project Goethes Faust I + II (1990–1992) followed.