Jan A. P. Kaczmarek

Jan Andrzej Paweł Kaczmarek (born April 29, 1953 in Konin, Poland) is a Polish Academy Award-winning composer. He has written the scores for over thirty feature films and documentaries.

Kaczmarek is a law-studies graduate of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He worked with Jerzy Grotowski’s Theater Laboratory in the late 1970s and created the Orchestra of the Eighth Day in 1977. He recorded his first album, "Music for the End", in 1982 for Flying Fish Records (Chicago). In 1989 he moved to Los Angeles. His music was released by Sony Classical, Decca, Varese Sarabande, Milan, and Savitor Records. He gives concerts in the U.S. and Europe.

In 2005 Kaczmarek received an Oscar for the music (score) for "Finding Neverland", directed by Marc Forster. Kaczmarek also won the National Board of Review award for Best Score of the Year and was nominated for a Golden Globe and the BAFTA’s Anthony Asquith Award for Achievement in Film Music. In addition to his work in films, he was commissioned to write two symphonic and choral pieces for two important national occasions in Poland: "Cantata for Freedom" (2005) to celebrate twenty-fifth anniversary of the Solidarity movement, and "Oratorio 1956" (2006) to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of a bloody uprising against totalitarian government in Poznan, Poland. Both premiers were broadcast live on Polish national television.

Kaczmarek is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

As of April 2007, Kaczmarek is working to set up an institute inspired by the Sundance Institute, in his home country of Poland, that he hopes will serve as a European center for development of new work in film, theater, music and new media. His Instytut Rozbitek (Rozbitek Institute) is set to officially open in 2009.

External links

*imdb name|id=0434222|name=Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
* [http://www.jan-ap-kaczmarek.com/ Jan Kaczmarek - official site]
* [http://rozbitek.org. Instytut Rozbitek website]