Frank Scheffer
Frank Scheffer (1956) is a Dutch documentary film director, best known for his documentaries about classical music. He has made several biographical documentaries about 20th century and 21st century composers, including Elliott Carter, Louis Andriessen, John Cage, Gustav Mahler, Luciano Berio, Nader Mashayekhi, Edgard Varèse,...
Scheffer also made three detailed documentary films about Frank Zappa, in collaboration with the Zappa Family Trust.
- Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die (2000)
- Frank Zappa Phase II: The Big Note (2002)
- Frank Zappa: Pioneer Of Future Music, parts 1 & 2 (2007)
Scheffer has been a Zappa fan since the age of thirteen, when he exchanged an album of the group Ekseption for We're Only In It For The Money. Thru Zappa he also discovered Edgard Varèse and modern classical music in general. Even as a child he wanted to make a documentary about Zappa's life one day. Scheffer likes the complete frankness and diversity in Zappa's work and took his idea of Conceptual Continuity as the general idea that runs through all his documentaries about Zappa. Scheffer's films focus specifically on Zappa as a composer and bring a lot of Zappa's family members and former musicians together, along with interesting footage.
Frank Scheffer is also mentioned and thanked in the liner notes of The MOFO Project/Object (2006) album. [1]
