16 mm film showing a "variable area" sound track at right.

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized recorded sound.

Origin of the term[link]

In movie industry terminology usage, a sound track is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production. Initially the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track (dialogue track, sound effects track, and music track), and these are mixed together to make what is called the composite track, which is heard in the film. A dubbing track is often later created when films are dubbed into another language. This is also known as a M & E track (music and effects) containing all sound elements minus dialogue which is then supplied by the foreign distributor in the native language of its territory.

The contraction soundtrack came into public consciousness with the advent of so-called "soundtrack albums" in the early 1950s. First conceived by movie companies as a promotional gimmick for new films, these commercially available recordings were labeled and advertised as "music from the original motion picture soundtrack." This phrase was soon shortened to just "original motion picture soundtrack." More accurately, such recordings are made from a film's music track, because they usually consist of the isolated music from a film, not the composite (sound) track with dialogue and sound effects.

The abbreviation OST is often used to describe the musical soundtrack on a recorded medium, such as CD, and it stands for Original Soundtrack; however, it is sometimes also used to differentiate the original music heard and recorded versus a rerecording or cover of the music.

Types of recordings[link]

In the soundtrack genre there are four types of recordings:

1. Musical film soundtracks which concentrate primarily on the songs
   (Examples: Grease, Singin' in the Rain)
2. Film scores which showcase the background music from non-musicals
   (Examples: Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings)
3. Albums of pop songs heard in whole or part in the background of non-musicals
   (Examples: Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally...)
4. Video game soundtracks are often released after a game's release, usually consisting of the background music from the game's levels, menus, title screens, promo material (such as entire songs that only segments of which were used in the game), cut-screens and occasionally sound-effects used in the game
   (Examples: Sonic Heroes, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)

The soundtrack to the 1937 Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first commercially issued film soundtrack^[1]. It was released in January 1938 as Songs from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (with the Same Characters and Sound Effects as in the Film of That Title) and has since seen numerous expansions and reissues.

The first musical film to have a commercially issued soundtrack album was MGM’s film biography of Show Boat composer Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By. The album was originally issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. Only eight selections from the film were included in this first edition of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the record sides the musical material needed editing and manipulation. This was before tape existed, so the record producer needed to copy segments from the playback discs used on set, the copy and re-copy them from one disc to another adding transitions and cross-fades until the final master was created. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original and the sound quality suffered for it. The playback recordings were purposely recorded very "dry" (without reverberation); otherwise it would come across as too hollow sounding in large movie theatres. This made these albums sound flat and boxy.

MGM Records called these "original cast albums" in the style of Decca's Broadway show cast albums. They also coined the phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack." Over the years the term "soundtrack" began to be commonly applied to any recording from a film, whether taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded in studio. The phrase is also sometimes incorrectly used for Broadway cast recordings. While it is correct to call a "soundtrack" a "cast recording" (since it represents the film cast) it is never correct to call a "cast recording" a "soundtrack." Among MGM's most notable soundtrack albums were those of the films Good News, Easter Parade, Annie Get Your Gun, Singin' in the Rain, Show Boat, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Gigi.

Film score albums did not really become popular until the LP era, although a few were issued in 78-rpm albums. Alex North’s score for the 1951 film version of A Streetcar Named Desire was released on a 10-inch LP by Capitol Records and sold so well that the label later re-released it on one side of a 12-inch LP with some of Max Steiner's film music on the reverse.

Steiner’s score for Gone with the Wind has been recorded many times, but when the film was reissued in 1967, MGM Records finally released an album of the famous score recorded directly from the soundtrack. Like the 1967 re-release of the film, this version of the score was artificially "enhanced for stereo". In recent years, Rhino Records has released a 2-CD set of the complete Gone With the Wind score, restored to its original mono sound.

One of the biggest-selling film scores of all time was John Williams's music from the movie Star Wars. Many film score albums go out-of-print after the films finish their theatrical runs and some have become extremely rare collectors’ items.

In a few rare instances an entire film dialogue track was issued on records. The 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film of Romeo and Juliet was issued as a 4-LP set, as a single LP with musical and dialogue excerpts, and as an album containing only the film's musical score. The ground-breaking film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was issued by Warner Bros Records as a 2-LP set containing virtually all the dialogue from the film. RCA Victor also issued a 2-LP set what was virtually all the dialogue from the film soundtrack of A Man for All Seasons.

Movie and television soundtracks[link]

The term soundtrack now most commonly refers to the music used in a movie (or television show), and/or to an album sold containing that music. Sometimes, the music has been recorded just for the film or album (e.g. Saturday Night Fever). Often, but not always, and depending on the type of movie, the soundtrack album will contain portions of the score, music composed for dramatic effect as the movie's plot occurs. In 1908, Camille Saint-Saëns composed the first music specifically for use in a motion picture (L'assasinat du duc de Guise), and releasing recordings of songs used in films became prevalent in the 1930s. Henry Mancini, who won an Emmy Award and two Grammys for his soundtrack to Peter Gunn, was the first composer to have a widespread hit with a song from a soundtrack.

By convention, a soundtrack record can contain all kinds of music including music "inspired by" but not actually appearing in the movie; the score contains only music by the original film's composer(s).^[2]

Video game soundtracks[link]

Soundtrack may also refer to music used in video games. While sound effects were nearly universally used for action happening in the game, music to accompany the gameplay was a later development. Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway were early composers of music specifically for video games for the 1980s Commodore 64 computer. Koji Kondo was an early and important composer for Nintendo games. As the technology improved, polyphonic and often orchestral soundtracks replaced simple monophonic melodies starting in the late 1980s and the soundtracks to popular games such as the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series began to be released separately. In addition to compositions written specifically for video games, the advent of CD technology allowed developers to incorporate licensed songs into their soundtrack (the Grand Theft Auto series is a good example of this). Furthermore, when Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001, it featured an option allowing users to customize the soundtrack for certain games by ripping a CD to the hard-drive.

Book soundtracks[link]

Only a few cases exist of an entire soundtrack being written specifically for a book.

A soundtrack for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was composed by Craig Russell for the San Luis Obispo Youth Symphony. Commissioned in 1995, it was finally put on disk in 2000 by the San Luis Obispo Symphony.^{[citation needed]}

For the 1996 Star Wars novel Shadows of the Empire (written by author Steve Perry), Lucasfilm chose Joel McNeely to write a score. This was an eccentric, experimental project, in contrast to all other soundtracks, as the composer was allowed to convey general moods and themes, rather than having to write music to flow for specific scenes. A project called "Sine Fiction"^[3] has made some soundtracks to novels by science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, and has thus far released 19 soundtracks to science-fiction novels or short stories. All of them are available for free download.

Author L. Ron Hubbard composed and recorded a soundtrack album to his novel Battlefield Earth entitled Space Jazz. He marketed the concept album as "the only original sound track ever produced for a book before it becomes a movie". There are two other soundtracks to Hubbard novels, being Mission Earth by Edgar Winter and To the Stars by Chick Corea.

The 1985 novel Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin, originally came in a box set with an audiocassette entitled Music and Poetry of the Kesh, featuring three performances of poetry, and ten musical compositions by Todd Barton.

In comics, Daniel Clowes' graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron had an official soundtrack album. The original black-and-white Nexus #3 from Capitol comics included the "Flexi-Nexi" which was a soundtrack flexi-disc for the issue. Trosper by Jim Woodring included a soundtrack album composed and performed by Bill Frisell,^[4] and the Absolute Edition of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is planned to include an original vinyl record.

As Internet access became more widespread, a similar practice developed of accompanying a printed work with a downloadable theme song, rather than a complete and physically published album. The theme songs for Nextwave,^[5] Runaways,^[6] Achewood, Dinosaur Comics and Killroy and Tina are examples of this.

In Japan, such examples of music inspired by a work and not intended to soundtrack an radio play or motion picture adaptation of it are known as an "image album" or "image song," though this definition also includes such things as film score demos inspired by concept art and songs inspired by a TV series which do not feature in it. Many audio books have some form of musical accompaniment, but these are generally not extensive enough to be released as a separate soundtrack.

See also[link]

• Audio restoration
• Film score
• Image album
• Image song
• List of soundtrack composers
• Cast recording – for musical theater
• Soundtrack album
• SoundtrackNet
• Musivisual Language

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

External links[link]

• the Soundtrack INFO project
• Film Composers and Soundtracks
• Soundtrack.net trailer music reference
• Soundtrackcollector.com Soundtrack Database
• BIT12 - Best Italian Tutorial by Composer Stefano Lentini

Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer receiving his star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame (2010)
Background information
Birth name	Hans Florian Zimmer
Born	(1957-09-12) 12 September 1957 (age 54) Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Genres	Film score, Video game score
Occupations	Film composer, Video game composer, Music producer
Instruments	Piano, Keyboard, MIDI Master Keyboard, Synthesizer, Guitar
Years active	1977–present
Labels	Remote Control Productions
Website	hanszimmer.com

Hans Florian Zimmer, German pronunciation: [hans ˈfloːʁi̯aːn ˈtsɪmɐ]; (born 12 September 1957) is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including award winning film scores for The Lion King (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003),The Dark Knight (2008), and Inception (2010).

Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. He is the head of the film music division at DreamWorks studios, and works with other composers through the company which he founded, Remote Control Productions.^[1]

Zimmer's works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. He has received four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Classical BRIT Award, and an Academy Award. He was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.^[2]

Early life[link]

Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a young child, he lived in Königstein-Falkenstein, where he played the piano at home, but had piano lessons only briefly as he disliked the discipline of formal lessons.^[3] He moved to London as a teenager, where he attended Hurtwood House school.^[4] In an interview with the German television station ZDF in 2006, he commented: "My father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend."^[5]

Early career[link]

Zimmer began his career playing keyboards and synthesizers. He worked with The Buggles, a New Wave band formed in 1977 with Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Woolley. Zimmer can be seen briefly in The Buggles' music video for the 1979 song "Video Killed the Radio Star".^[6] After working with The Buggles, he started to work for the Italian group Krisma, a New Wave band formed in 1976 with Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser. He was a featured synthesist for Krisma’s third album, Cathode Mamma. He has also worked with the band Helden (with Warren Cann from Ultravox).^[7] Both Zimmer (on keyboards) and Cann (on drums), were invited to be part of the Spanish group Mecano for a live performance in Segovia (Spain) in 1984. Two songs from this concert were included in the "Mecano: En Concierto" album released in 1985 only in Spain. In 1980 Zimmer co-produced a single, "The History Of The World Part 1," with, and for, UK Punk band The Damned, which was also included on their 1980 LP release, "The Black Album," and carried the description of his efforts as "Over-Produced by Hans Zimmer."

While living in London, Zimmer wrote advertising jingles for Air-Edel Associates.^[7] In the 1980s, Zimmer partnered with Stanley Myers, a prolific film composer who wrote the scores for over sixty films. Zimmer and Myers co–founded the London–based Lillie Yard recording studio. Together, Myers and Zimmer worked on fusing the traditional orchestral sound with electronic instruments.^[8] Some of the films on which Zimmer and Myers worked are Moonlighting (1982), Success is the Best Revenge (1984), Insignificance (1985), and My Beautiful Launderette (1985). Zimmer's first solo score was Terminal Exposure for director Nico Mastorakis in 1987, for which he also wrote the songs. Zimmer acted as score producer for the 1987 film The Last Emperor, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.^[7]

One of Zimmer's most durable works from his time in the United Kingdom is the theme song for the television game show Going for Gold, which he composed with Sandy McClelland in 1987. In an interview with the BBC, Zimmer said: "Going For Gold was a lot of fun. It's the sort of stuff you do when you don't have a career yet. God, I just felt so lucky because this thing paid my rent for the longest time."^[9]

Hollywood film scoring[link]

A turning point in Zimmer's career occurred with the 1988 film Rain Man.^[8] Hollywood director Barry Levinson was looking for someone to score Rain Man, and his wife heard the soundtrack CD of the anti-Apartheid drama A World Apart, for which Zimmer had composed the music. Levinson was impressed by Zimmer's work, and hired him to score Rain Man.^[10] In the score, Zimmer uses synthesizers (mostly a Fairlight CMI) mixed with steel drums. Zimmer explained that "It was a road movie, and road movies usually have jangly guitars or a bunch of strings. I kept thinking don't be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained. The Raymond character doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist?".^[11] Zimmer’s score for Rain Man was nominated for an Academy Award in 1989, and the film won four Academy Awards including Best Picture.^[12]

A year after Rain Man, Zimmer was asked to compose the score for Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy which, like Rain Man, won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Driving Miss Daisy’s instrumentation consisted entirely of synthesizers and samplers, played by Zimmer. According to an interview with Sound On Sound magazine in 2002, the piano sounds heard within the score come from the Roland MKS–20, a rackmount synthesizer. Zimmer joked: "It didn't sound anything like a piano, but it behaved like a piano."^[13]

1991's Thelma & Louise soundtrack by Zimmer featured the trademark slide guitar performance by Pete Haycock on the "Thunderbird" theme in the film. As a teenager, Zimmer was a fan of Haycock, and their collaboration on film scores includes K2 and Drop Zone.^[14]

For the 1992 film The Power of One, Zimmer traveled to Africa in order to use African choirs and drums in the recording of the score. On the strength of this work, Disney Animation Studios approached Zimmer to compose the score for the 1994 film The Lion King. This was to be his first score for an animated film. Zimmer said that he had wanted to go to South Africa to record parts of the soundtrack, but was unable to visit the country as he had a police record there "for doing 'subversive' movies" after his work on The Power of One. Disney studio bosses expressed fears that Zimmer would be killed if he went to South Africa, so the recording of the choirs was organized during a visit by Lebo M.^[15] Zimmer won numerous awards for his work on The Lion King, including an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, and two Grammys. In 1997, the score was adapted into a Broadway musical version which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1998.^[16][17] As of April 2012^[update], the musical version of The Lion King is the highest grossing Broadway show of all time, having grossed $853.8 million.^[18]

	Crimson Tide - "Roll Tide" noicon A clip from the score of the 1995 film Crimson Tide.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Zimmer's score for Crimson Tide (1995) won a Grammy Award for the main theme, which makes heavy use of synthesizers in place of traditional orchestral instruments. For The Thin Red Line (1998), Zimmer said that the director Terrence Malick wanted the music before he started filming, so he recorded six and a half hours of music.^[11] Zimmer's next project was The Prince of Egypt (1998), which was produced by DreamWorks Animation. He introduced Ofra Haza, an Israeli Yemenite singer, to the directors, and they thought she was so beautiful that they designed one of the characters in the film to look like her.^[11]

Work: 2000–present[link]

	Gladiator - "Battle" noicon A clip from the score of the 2000 film Gladiator.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In the 2000s, Zimmer has composed scores for Hollywood blockbuster films including Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down and Hannibal (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), The Da Vinci Code (2006) The Simpsons Movie (2007), Angels and Demons (2009) and Sherlock Holmes (2009). While writing the score for The Last Samurai, Zimmer felt that his knowledge of Japanese music was extremely limited. He began doing extensive research, but the more he studied, the less he felt he knew. Finally, Zimmer took what he had written to Japan for feedback and was shocked when he was asked how he knew so much about Japanese music.^[11]

During the scoring of The Last Samurai in early 2003, Zimmer was approached by the producer Jerry Bruckheimer, with whom he had worked previously on Crimson Tide, The Rock and Pearl Harbor. Bruckheimer had finished shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, but was unhappy with the music composed for the film by Alan Silvestri and wanted a replacement score.^[19] Bruckheimer wanted Zimmer to rescore the film, but due to his commitments on The Last Samurai, the task of composing and supervising music for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was given to Klaus Badelt, one of Zimmer's colleagues at Media Ventures. Zimmer provided some themes that were used in the film, although he is not credited on screen.^[20][21] Zimmer was hired as the composer for the three subsequent films in the series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), collaborating with Rodrigo y Gabriela.^[22]

For the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, "The Daily Variety" reported that Zimmer purchased an out-of-tune piano for 200 dollars and used it throughout the scoring process because of its "quirkiness".^[23]

Hans Zimmer in 2008

Zimmer is also noted for his work on the scores of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), on which he collaborated with James Newton Howard.^[9] The scores for these films were disqualified from receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score due to too many composers being listed on the cue sheet.^[24] Zimmer succeeded in reversing the decision not to nominate The Dark Knight in December 2008, arguing that the process of creating a modern film score was collaborative, and that it was important to credit a range of people who had played a part in its production.^[25] Zimmer explained his approach to scoring with other musicians in an interview with Soundtrack.net in 2006:

	Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard - "Now We Are Free" noicon A clip from the score of the 2000 film Gladiator.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

"Originally I had this idea that it should be possible to create some kind of community around this kind of work, and I think by muddying the titles - not having "you are the composer, you are the arranger, you are the orchestrator" - it just sort of helped us to work more collaboratively. It wasn't that important to me that I had "score by Hans Zimmer" and took sole credit on these things. It's like Gladiator: I gave Lisa Gerrard the co-credit because, even though she didn't write the main theme, her presence and contributions were very influential. She was more than just a soloist, and this is why I have such a problem with specific credits."^[26]

Zimmer is also composing the score for The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The film is scheduled for release in July 2012.^[27]

Zimmer works with other composers through his company Remote Control Productions, formerly known as Media Ventures. His studio in Santa Monica, California has an extensive range of computer equipment and keyboards, allowing demo versions of film scores to be created quickly.^[28] His colleagues at the studio have included Harry Gregson-Williams, James Dooley, Geoff Zanelli, Henning Lohner, Steve Jablonsky, Mark Mancina, John Van Tongeren, John Powell and Thomas J. Bergersen.

In October 2000, Zimmer performed live in concert for the first time with an orchestra and choir at the 27th Annual Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent.^[29] He has received a range of honors and awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in film Composition from the National Board of Review, the Frederick Loewe Award in 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement, and BMI's Richard Kirk Award for lifetime achievement in 1996. Recent work includes the Spanish language film Casi Divas,^[30] Sherlock Holmes, The Burning Plain (2009), and Inception (2010). He composed the theme for the television boxing series The Contender, and worked with Lorne Balfe on the music for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was his first video game project.^[31] Zimmer also collaborated with composers Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu to create the score for the video game Crysis 2.^[32]

In December 2010, Zimmer received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He dedicated the award to his publicist and long term friend Ronni Chasen, who was shot dead in Beverly Hills the previous month.^[33]

Zimmer composed and produced the music for the 84th Academy Awards with Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes.^[34]

Zimmer lives in Los Angeles with his wife Suzanne, and has four children.^[35][36]

Discography and awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Book: Hans Zimmer
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hans Zimmer

• Official website
• Hans Zimmer at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Hans Zimmer in Film Score Monthly
• Interview with Hans Zimmer about Sherlock Holmes from C Music TV
• Focus.De

v t e Hans Zimmer Soundtracks Angels and Demons  · Driving Miss Daisy  · Batman Begins  · Beyond Rangoon  · Black Hawk Down  · The Da Vinci Code  · The Dark Knight  · Gladiator  · Inception · Kung Fu Panda  · Kung Fu Panda 2  · The Lion King  · Madagascar  · Mission: Impossible II  · Pearl Harbor  · Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End  · Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl  · Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest  · Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides  · Pirates of the Caribbean: Soundtrack Treasures Collection · Rango  · Sherlock Holmes  · The Thin Red Line Songs "Hoist the Colours" Related articles Discography · Remote Control Productions Book:Hans Zimmer  · Category:Hans Zimmer

Howard Shore
Shore in New York on October 7, 2010
Background information
Birth name	Howard Leslie Shore
Born	(1946-10-18) October 18, 1946 (age 65) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Classical, Orchestra, Film Score
Occupations	composer, orchestrator, conductor, music producer
Years active	1978–present
Website	howardshore.com

Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg, having scored all but one of his films since 1979.

He has also composed a few concert works including one opera, The Fly, based on the plot (though not his score) of Cronenberg's 1986 film premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 2 July 2008.,^[1] a short piece Fanfare for the Wanamaker Organ and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a short overture for the Swiss 21st Century Symphony Orchestra.

Shore is a three-time winner of the Academy Award, and has also won three Golden Globe Awards and four Grammy Awards. He is the uncle of film composer Ryan Shore.^[2] Shore serves on the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, Berklee College of Music.^[3]

Early life and career[link]

Shore was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Bernice (née Ash) and Mac Shore.^[4] He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston after graduating from Forest Hill Collegiate Institute. From 1969 to 1972, he performed with the group Lighthouse. In 1970 he was the music director of Lorne Michaels and Hart Pomerantz's short-lived TV program The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour. Shore wrote the music for Canadian magician Doug Henning's magical/musical Spellbound in 1974, and he was the musical director for Lorne Michaels' hugely influential late-night NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1975 to 1980, appearing in many musical sketches, including Howard Shore and His All-Nurse Band, and dressed as a beekeeper for a John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd performance of the Slim Harpo classic I'm a King Bee. Shore also suggested the name for The Blues Brothers to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

Film scoring[link]

1979–2000[link]

Shore's first film score was to David Cronenberg's first major film The Brood (1979). He would go on to score all of Cronenberg's subsequent films, with the exception of The Dead Zone (1983), which was scored by Michael Kamen. The first film he scored that was not directed by Cronenberg was Martin Scorsese's After Hours.

Following After Hours, he scored The Fly (1986), again directed by Cronenberg. Two years later, he composed the score to Big (1988), directed by Penny Marshall and starring Tom Hanks. He then scored two more of David Cronenberg's films: Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991).

During 1991, Shore composed the score for the highly acclaimed film The Silence of the Lambs, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, and directed by Jonathan Demme. He received his first BAFTA nomination for the score. The film became the third (and most recent) to win the five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress). Shore is the only living composer to have scored a "Top Five" Oscar winning film.

During 1993, he composed the scores for M. Butterfly (another collaboration with Cronenberg), Philadelphia (his second collaboration with Jonathan Demme), and Mrs. Doubtfire, directed by Chris Columbus. The latter two films were highly successful; Philadelphia winning Tom Hanks his first Oscar.

Shore scored another three films in 1994: The Client, Ed Wood, and Nobody's Fool. Ed Wood is notable for being one of the two films directed by Tim Burton that did not feature a score by Danny Elfman.

Shore continued to score numerous films from 1995–2001, including two David Fincher films, Seven (1995) and The Game (1997); also, he collaborated on two films with Cronenberg along with Tom Hanks' directorial debut, That Thing You Do!. Shore composed the score for the 2000 film The Cell.

2001–2005[link]

Shore at LOTR press conference at Wellington, New Zealand in 2003.

Shore's major success came in 2001 with his score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in the highly acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The news that Shore would score the trilogy surprised some, since he was primarily associated with dark, ominous films and had never scored an epic of this scale. However, the score was hugely successful and won Shore his first Oscar, as well as a Grammy Award, and nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

The following year, Shore composed the scores to Panic Room, Gangs of New York (replacing Elmer Bernstein), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second film in the trilogy. The latter two films were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, although neither won. Shore's score for The Two Towers was deemed ineligible for submission to the Academy, due to a new rule that disallowed the submission of scores which contained themes from previous work. This rule proved very unpopular, due to the fact that had it been present in earlier years, it would have invalidated various other sequel scores (such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones) from being nominated. As a result the Academy dispensed with this rule for future years. Shore did, however, receive a BAFTA nomination for Gangs of New York.

In 2003 he composed the score for the final film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The film was the most successful film in the trilogy and the most successful of the year. Shore won his second Oscar for Best Original Score, as well as a third for Best Original Song for "Into the West", which he shared with Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox. The film was nominated for, and won a total of eleven Academy Awards, a record for the number of Oscars won by a single film, and a record that only two other films—Titanic (1997) and Ben-Hur (1959)—have matched. Shore also won his first Golden Globe, his third and fourth Grammy (the fourth for Best Song), and was nominated for a third BAFTA. The scores of The Lord of the Rings became one of the most successful film scores ever written, and the biggest success in Shore's career.

In 2004, Shore again collaborated with Martin Scorsese, scoring his epic film The Aviator. He won a second Golden Globe for the score, becoming the second composer to have won consecutive Golden Globes in the Original Score category. He also received his sixth Grammy nomination, and his fifth BAFTA nomination.

He collaborated again with David Cronenberg in 2005 to score A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen. The film was a success and received two Oscar nominations. In 2006, he collaborated for the fourth time with Martin Scorsese, this time to score The Departed. The film was highly successful and won four Oscars, including a long awaited win for Scorsese, and Best Picture.

Although Shore was originally commissioned to compose the soundtrack for King Kong (indeed, he had already recorded most of the music), he was later replaced by James Newton Howard due to "differing creative aspirations for the score" on his and the filmmakers' parts. This was a mutual agreement between himself and Peter Jackson. Despite this, Shore has a cameo near the end of King Kong as the conductor of the pit orchestra in the theater, performing portions of Max Steiner's score to the original 1933 version of the film.

2006–present[link]

In 2007, he composed the music for Soul of the Ultimate Nation, an online multiplayer video game. The soundtrack is notable for being the first video game soundtrack to feature Lydia Kavina on the theremin. During 2007 he also composed the scores to The Last Mimzy, and Eastern Promises, the latter of which was another collaboration with David Cronenberg and earned Shore his fourth Golden Globe nomination. In 2008 he scored Doubt, starring Meryl Streep and directed by John Patrick Shanley. The film was a success, earning five Oscar nominations.

In 2010, Shore composed the score to the third installment in the highly popular Twilight film series, following Carter Burwell and Alexandre Desplat, who scored the first and second films, respectively. He also replaced John Corigliano to score Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson.

Shore's 2011 projects are A Dangerous Method, continuing his long-term collaboration with director David Cronenberg. He also composed the score to Martin Scorsese's Hugo, his fifth collaboration with the director, which earned him a sixth Golden Globe nomination and fourth Oscar nomination.

Shore's future projects include Robert Sigl's The Spider^[5] and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit,^[6] which is currently in production. He is also set to compose the music to Sinatra,^[7] and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,^[8] both of which are being directed by Martin Scorsese and are due for release in 2013.

Conducting and performing[link]

Since 2004, he has toured the world conducting local orchestras in the performance of his new symphonic arrangement of his highly acclaimed Lord of the Rings scores. The new work is entitled The Lord of the Rings: Symphony in Six Movements. There are two movements for each of the movies, and an intermission between the second and third (or first and second, in some cases) movements. The concert presentation of the symphony also includes projected still images relating the music being performed to scenes from the films. Recently, however, Shore has been busy with other projects, leaving other conductors including Markus Huber, Alexander Mickelthwaite, and John Mauceri to lead the orchestras. April 24, 2008 marked the North American Live to Projection debut of Fellowship of the Ring, with the score performed live by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ludwig Wicki. Wicki also conducted the Filene Center Orchestra at the Wolf Trap Farm Park in Vienna, Virginia on May 21 and 22, 2008 in the U.S. premiere of the Fellowship of the Ring Live to Projection. September 16, 2010 Shore conducted the RSO Vienna (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra) which performed "In Dreams from The Fellowship of the Ring" at Hollywood in Vienna in Vienna, Austria.

Television[link]

• Shore was commissioned by Macy's to write a Fanfare for the Store's 150th anniversary featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Wanamaker Organ, the world's largest playing pipe organ. The work was debuted in the Grand Court of Macy's Philadelphia Store on September 27, 2008 in a concert that drew reviews from most of the major East Coast newspapers.
• With John Lurie, Shore wrote the theme song for Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The theme was carried over to The Tonight Show when O'Brien succeeded Jay Leno as host.

Radio[link]

• Shore narrates a one-hour CBC Radio documentary/soundscape on music in thriller/suspense film genres also including references to radio dramas and other media. The episode was called "Unsettling Scores"^[9] and premiered on the program called Inside the Music.

Awards[link]

Shore has received four Academy Award nominations, winning three, two for Best Original Score, for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He also won the Oscar for Best Original Song for "Into the West" from Return of the King. He received his fourth nomination for his work on Hugo.

Shore has also received six Golden Globe nominations, winning three consecutive awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song - "Into the West" for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Aviator (2004), making him the only the second composer (after Alan Menken) to have received consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Score. He also won three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Score for each of the Lord of the Rings films, and received a second award in 2003 for the song "Into the West" from "Return of the King" in the category of Best Song. He has also received five BAFTA nominations, but has not won.

On June 11, 2007, Shore was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree from York University in Toronto for "his sweeping artistic vision".^[10]

Shore has also been honored with awards from The National Board of Review, Recording Academy Honors, The Broadcast Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics, Genie Award, World Soundtrack Award, New York's Gotham Award, and The Saturn Award for Science Fiction.

Shore is the first recipient of the Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Science Fiction Feature Film for The Last Mimzy.

On September 16, 2010 he was awarded with the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award by the City of Vienna at the yearly film music gala concert Hollywood in Vienna.^[11]

Filmography[link]