Janusz Olejniczak, the Polish musician and teacher who played the piano part in the 2002 Oscar-winning film “The Pianist,” has died at the age of 72, his family announced Monday.
According to a statement from his family to the media, Olejniczak died of a heart attack on Sunday.
The statement said his “extraordinary musical sensitivity, especially in the interpretation of the music of Frédéric Chopin, has brought him international fame and recognition.”
Born on October 2, 1952 in Wrocław, Oleniczak began his piano education at the age of six and studied in Warsaw, Paris, and Essen.
Olejniczak's international career began in 1970, when, at just 18 years old, he won the 8th Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. Commentators have noted that Olejniczak physically resembles the Romantic-era composer, a trait that led him to play Chopin in Andrzej Zulawski's 1991 film The Blue Note.
In 2002, Olejniczak recorded the piano part for Roman Polanski's The Pianist. His hands are seen playing the piano in the film, for which Polanski won the Oscar for Best Director and Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar.
Olejniczak has been a judge for the Chopin Piano Competition for many years, and since 2018 he has been a judge for two Chopin competitions on period instruments.
Alexander Laskowski, a spokesman for the National Frédéric Chopin Institute, said the staff was “deeply saddened” by Olejniczak's death.
Raskowski described him as “one of the greatest modern performers of Chopin's music'' and a great teacher of period instruments.
Composer and conductor Jerzy Maksimiuk, a personal friend, said that Oležničak's “delicate soul and extraordinary talent are evident throughout his interpretations”, where he created a “unique aura”. .
Maksymiuk said he had lunch with Oleniczak on Sunday and discussed the “great plans” he was determined to pursue despite his health problems.
