János S. Darvas
was born 1948 in Santiago de Chile, several months before his parents – Hungarian Jews who had emigrated to South America – returned to their country.
From 1965 to 1969 he studied music at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest. In 1969 he immigrated to Germany, settling in Cologne, where he studied percussion with Christoph Caskel until 1973, while at the same time collaborating with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Since 1980 he has worked as an independent television director specializing in classical music.
He has written and directed the following documentaries, among others:
- Mendelssohn, His Last Journey – WDR/SWF 1980
- Friedrich Gulda – A Portrait – LOFT/Bodo Kessler Film 1981
- Paderewsky – Pianist and Prime Minister – WDR 1984
- Zoltán Kocsis – A Portrait – WDR 1987
- Spoleto – Thirty Years Festival of Two Worlds – WDR 1987
- But for Women – Dr. Brahms. Johannes Brahms – Metropolitan 1996
- Antonio Pappano – A Portrait – Metropolitan 2000
- György Kurtág – Master Class – Metropolitan 2000
- Igor Stravinsky: Composer – Metropolitan 2001
- The Hungarian Touch – Idéale Audience 2002
- Paul Abraham – WDR/arte 2008
- The Genius of Haydn – WDR/arte 2009
- Coming Home – EuroArts 2011
Other key activities of János S. Darvas are multicamera productions for the screen: live broadcasts and recordings of concerts, opera and theatre performances for television, DVD, Blu-ray, cinema and the internet.
He has worked in Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Bayreuth, Cologne, Munich, Rome, Paris, Bruxelles, London, Madrid, Budapest, Prague, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv.