Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Film composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek was active in his native Poland, around Europe, and in the U.S., where he earned an Academy Award for his score for the Peter Pan biopic Finding Neverland. He also scored other major American films, including Washington Square (1997) and Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009). Kaczmarek lived in Los Angeles but maintained strong connections to Poland, where he composed concert and operatic works and set up a film music institute. He remained active into the 2020s and won several other major awards before his death in 2024.

Kaczmarek was born on April 29, 1953, in Konin, Poland. He studied music in his early years but earned a law degree from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 1977. His postgraduation years coincided with the increasing cultural independence of Communist Poland and its opening to Western influences and cultural structures. Kaczmarek formed a group called the Orchestra of the Eighth Day in 1977. In 1982, he recorded an album under his own name, Music for the End, for the folk/experimental label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Flying+Fish%22">Flying Fish</a>. In 1989, Kaczmarek moved to Los Angeles. His career in dramatic music began in live theater, and he won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for his music for a production of John Ford's 1633 play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore in 1992. His first score was composed in 1993 for the horror film Doppelganger. He continued to work in Poland's film industry, and his first recorded film score came in 1995 for Agnieska Holland's 1995 film Total Eclipse.

That was the first of nine scores Kaczmarek composed between 1995 and 2005; these included both American and Polish films. A notable score was for Unfaithful (2002), a thriller starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Kaczmarek's most famous score remains that for Finding Neverland (2004), a film about <a href="spotify:artist:0TE6ZHIIs5FnDMREUcj4pM">J.M. Barrie</a>, the creator of Peter Pan. In addition to the Academy Awards for Best Original Score, Kaczmarek took home the National Board of Review Award for Best Score of the Year and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Anthony Asquith Award for Achievement in Film Music. Kaczmarek continued to score successful films, including Hachi: A Dog's Tale, a 2009 remake of a Japanese film, and the biblical drama Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018). He also wrote several choral works for major events in Poland, including Cantata for Freedom (2005), marking the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity labor movement, and Oratorio 1956 (2006), commemorating the 50th anniversary of an uprising against the Polish government. Kaczmarek was also the composer of Universa -- Open Opera, a work written for the 650th anniversary of Kraków's Jagiellonian University. In 2023, Kaczmarek received a Lifetime Achievement Polish Film Award. He died of multiple system atrophy on May 21, 2024, in Kraków. ~ James Manheim, Rovi