POLISH STUDIES ENDOWMENT COMMITTEE

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

February 4th, 2006

Music without Borders

kaczmarek
Jan Andrzej Pawel Kaczmarek (usually called Jan A.P. Kaczmarek) is a Polish
composer with a tremendous international reputation that continues to
grow. Although initially trained as a lawyer, he became involved in
composing music for the avant-garde and political theatre in Poland and
music has been his driving passion ever since. He toured extensively
with his the Orchestra of the Eighth Day in Europe and the United
States, while recording albums. This gave rise to work composing for
theatre in the U.S. (a NY award in 1992) as well as for film. He has
achieved recognition as a film composer with scores to such films as
Total Eclipse, Bliss, Washington Square, Aimée & Jaguar, The Third
Miracle, and Quo Vadis?
. Frank Rich of the New York Times found his
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music worthy of the Bertolucci and Visconti films, while an another
reviewer wrote “it undulates with hypnotic force that gets under your
skin”. A number of his more recent film scores have been for
higher-profile U.S. productions including Lost Souls, Unfaithful and
Finding Neverland, for which he won on February 2005 his first Oscar for
the Best Original Score.

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek also won the National Review Board’s award for
Best Score of the Year, and was nominated for both a Golden Globe and
BAFTA’s award for Achievement in Film Music. In addition to his work in
films, Jan Kaczmarek is also setting up an Institute inspired by the
Sundance Institute, in his home country of Poland, as a European center
for development of new work in the areas of film, theatre, music and new
media.