MOVIE MUSIC UK

Composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek died on May 21, 2024, at the age of 71. He had been in hospice care for several years, after being diagnosed with multiple system atrophy in 2022.

Jan Andrzej Paweł Kaczmarek was born in Konin, Poland, in April 1953. Originally intending to be a lawyer, he graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań with a law degree, specializing in legal theory and philosophy of law. However, he switched careers to focus on music in the 1970s, and spent several years working with experimental theater companies, and writing music for stage productions. He and his first wife Elżbieta moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, where he wrote music for the Mark Taper Forum and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. In 1992 he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for his incidental music for director JoAnne Akalaitis’s new version of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.

Kaczmarek had written music for a handful of small-budget features and TV movies in his native Poland in the 1980s and early 1990s, but he first came to international attention in 1995 with his score for director Agnieszka Holland’s Total Eclipse, about the life of poet Arthur Rimbaud, played by Leonardo di Caprio. He continued to work on a series of acclaimed films throughout the 1990s and early 2000, including arthouse dramas like Bliss (1996), Washington Square (1997), Aimée & Jaguar (1999), and The Third Miracle (1999), and more mainstream fare like the horror thriller Lost Souls (2000), and the erotic drama Unfaithful (2002). He often worked with Polish directors making English-language films – Holland, Janusz Kamiński, Yurek Bogayevicz – and he invariably wrote music that was elegant, technically masterful, emotionally poignant, but subtle, conveying a distinctly European sensibility.

Kaczmarek enjoyed the biggest success of his career in 2004 when he won the Academy Award for Best Score for his work on Finding Neverland, director Marc Forster’s film about the life of playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with the family who inspired him to create Peter Pan. Kaczmarek received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for the same score, and it was cited as the Outstanding Film Music Composition of 2004 by the National Board of Review. His work post-Finding Neverland included such excellent scores as Evening (1997), Passchendaele (2008), Hachiko: A Dog’s Story (2009), and Paul: Apostle of Christ (2018).

In addition to his work in films, Kaczmarek was commissioned to write two symphonic and choral pieces for two important national occasions in Poland: Cantata for Freedom (2005) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity movement, and Oratorio 1956 (2006) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a bloody uprising against totalitarian government in Poznań. Other concert works include Jankiel’s Concert, The Open Window, and Universa – Open Opera, an opera written for the 650th anniversary of the Jagiellonian University, which was held in Kraków’s Main Square in May 2014.

In 2010, inspired by the Sundance Institute in the United States, Kaczmarek established Instytut Rozbitek, a new center intended to showcase new film, theatre, music and media in Poland. Then in 2011 he established the Transatlantyk Festival, an international film and music festival held in different cities around Poland. In 2015 he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his outstanding artistic accomplishments and for promoting Polish culture abroad, and in 2023 he received the Lifetime Achievement Polish Film Award for his contribution to Polish cinema.

Kaczmarek had been married to his second wife, architect and interior designer Aleksandra Twardowska, since 2016; he had five children, including his daughter, writer Anastazja Davis, who was instrumental in providing care for her father during his illness.

On a personal note, I just want to say that on the several occasions I met him, he always struck me as a warm, approachable, fiercely intelligent man who was passionate about art and music. He was always very supportive of me and my writing, sending me copies of his latest scores, and offering astute observations about reviews I had written. The last time I spoke with him was at the film music festival in Krakow seven years ago, and he heartily greeted me when he saw me. That’s the memory I will take away from him.