Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 40 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for
Howard Shore
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 is also a prolific composer of concert works; his first 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]
Shore is a three-time winner of the Academy Award, and has also won two Golden Globe Awards and four Grammy Awards. He is the uncle of film composer Ryan Shore.[2]
He is best known to this wiki for being the composer of the Eclipse soundtrack
Early life and career
Shore was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Bernice (née Ash) and Mac Shore.[3] 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 forThe Blues Brothers to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.
Film scoring
Shore's first film score was to David Cronenberg's first major film The Brood (1979). He would go on to score all but one of Cronenberg's subsequent films, with the exception of The Dead Zone (1983), which was scored by the late 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 Anthony Hopkins, and directed by Jonathan Demme. He recieved 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 another two collaborations with Cronenberg and Tom Hanks' directorial debut; That Thing You Do!.
His 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 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", Spider, Gangs of New York (replacing Elmer Bernstein and collaborating with Martin Scorsese for the first time in nearly twenty years), 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, in 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, recieve 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 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 first, and to date, the only, composer to have won consecutive Golden Globes in the Original Score category. He also recieved his sixth Grammy nominations, 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 recieved 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.
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 byJohn 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 next assignment will be to score The Hobbit, which will be released in two parts. Although Guillermo del Toro was originally set to direct the film, he left the project in 2010. It is now rumoured that Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, will also direct these films.
==Awards ==
Shore has received three Academy Award nominations, winning all of them, two for Best Original Music 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.
Shore has also received four Golden Globe nominations, winning two consecutive awards for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Aviator (2004), making him the first (and only) composer 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".[5]
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 TheSaturn 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.
==Filmography
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