Paul Smaczny

Paul Smaczny studied law, french and german literature, film and theatre arts in Regensburg, Hamburg and Paris. After obtaining his master’s degree, he began working as an assistant director and dramatic advisor for various theatre productions in France. In 1986, he co-founded the theatre and film production company Le Grand Nuage de Magellan.

Since 1989 he is active as a film producer and director. In 1995 he was appointed Vice President and Director of Music Production at EuroArts Music International, and its Managing Director in 2001. He has produced and partly directed more than 150 films and television programs throughout the world, capturing some of the most important musical events of the last eighteen years, featuring such renowned orchestras and opera houses as the Staatsoper in Berlin, La Scala in Milan, the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

His film credits as a director include:

• The Grand Concert (1993)
• Opera Tales (series,1993-1994)
• Wagner, Myth & Samurai (1994)
• Between School and Cantata (1995)
• The Silence that Follows the Music (1996)
• Christian Zacharias (1997)
• Entre Quatre-z-Yeux (1998)
• Maestros in Democracy (2000)
• Multiple Identities – Encounters with Daniel Barenboim (2001, Special Jury Prize, Vienna TV Awards 2002)
• Lessons in Harmony (2002)
• Claudio Abbado – Hearing the Silence (2003, Best Portrait Prize at the 22nd FIFA)
• Emotion and Analysis (2004)