Walter Scheuer, 82; Produced Musical Documentaries

Walter Scheuer, 82, a wealthy investor and arts patron whose love of classical music led him to produce musical documentaries that included the Oscar-winning “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China,” has died. He was 82.

Scheuer, who since 1977 had been a trustee of Carnegie Hall, where he worked closely with Stern, died Sept. 20.

In 1979, Scheuer backed Murray Lerner’s film documenting Stern’s tour of China, which won an Oscar in 1980 for best documentary. Scheuer also produced the 1988 movie “High Fidelity: The Guarneri String Quartet” and “November’s Children: Revolution in Prague” (1991) and was the executive producer of “The Turandot Project” (2000), which documented a production of Puccini’s opera in Beijing.

He was a trustee of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and financed its first tour of China in 1996. He also was an early financial supporter of Symphony Space, a cultural institution on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and backed music programs for city schoolchildren as well as aspiring documentary makers and foreign students coming to study in New York.