James Horner Biography
Summary
"James Roy Horner" (born August 14 1953) is an American composer of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements. Horner won two Academy Awards for his score and song compositions for the film "Titanic" in 1997.
Early life
James Horner was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, Harry Horner, was a production designer, set designer and occasional film director. Horner's early years were spent in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music and studied under György Ligeti. He received his bachelor's degree in music from the University of Southern California, and eventually earned his masters and doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied with Paul Chihara and others. After several scoring assignments with the American Film Institute in the 1970s, he ended his teaching of music theory at the UCLA and turned to film scoring.
In his youth Horner once dated Carrie Goldsmith, daughter of famous composer Jerry Goldsmith.
Film and television scoring
Horner began his film scoring career by working for B-movie director and producer Roger Corman, with his first composer credit for Corman's big-budget "Battle Beyond the Stars". His works steadily gained notice in Hollywood, which led him to take on larger projects. Horner made a breakthrough in 1982, when he had the chance to score for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", establishing himself as a mainstream composer. Horner continued composing music for high-profile releases in the 1980s, including "Krull" (1983), "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (1984), "Cocoon" (1985), "Aliens" (1986, earning his first Academy Award nomination), "Willow" (1988), "Glory" and "Field of Dreams" (both 1989).
Horner's scores also began to see a secondary life with their usage in film trailers for other movies. Excerpts from his score for "Aliens" rank second in the most commonly-used soundtrack cues for film trailers.
In a strange twist, several films whose scores were composed by Michael Kamen have had Horner music for the trailers; most notably, the music from "Willow" is substituted for the theme Kamen wrote for the 1993 remake of "The Three Musketeers".
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Horner also displayed a talent for writing orchestral scores for children's films (particularly those produced by Amblin Entertainment), with credits for "An American Tail" (1986), "The Land Before Time" (1988), "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West" (1991), "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" (1993), and "Casper" and "Balto" (both 1995).
The year 1995 saw Horner produce no fewer than six scores, including his commercially successful and critically-acclaimed works for "Braveheart" and "Apollo 13". Horner's greatest financial success would come in 1997 with an enormously popular score to "Titanic". The album became the best-selling instrumental soundtrack in history with over 24 million copies sold worldwide, and is the third best-selling soundtrack album ever, trailing only Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" soundtrack (over 37 million) and the Bee Gees "Saturday Night Fever" (40 million). In 1997 he won Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for 'My Heart Will Go On' (which he co-wrote with Will Jennings), in addition to three Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
Since "Titanic", Horner has continued to score for major productions (including "The Perfect Storm", "A Beautiful Mind", and "The Legend of Zorro"). Aside from the major projects, Horner periodically tackles smaller projects as well (such as "Iris" and "Bobby Jones: A Stroke of Genius"). He frequently scores for the films of director Ron Howard, a partnership that began with "Cocoon" in 1985. Coincidentally, Horner's end title music from "Glory" can be heard in the trailer for Howard's "Backdraft".
Recently, Horner finished the scores for "All the King's Men", directed by Steve Zaillian, and "Apocalypto", directed by Mel Gibson.
Horner composed the new theme music for the "CBS Evening News". The theme was introduced as part of the debut of Katie Couric as anchor on September 5, 2006. It has since been adopted by most other CBS News programs, as well.
Controversy
Horner has been accused of transposing hooks and orchestral motifs from other scores, both his and those of other composers. For example, the signature themes for the Klingons in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the Xenomorphs in the film Aliens are identical. While copying music, though not entire themes, from one's own previous scores is common practice, this point is one of fierce debate between proponents of Horner and his detractors.
List of film scores
1980: "Humanoids from the Deep"
1980: "Battle Beyond the Stars"
1981: "The Hand"
1981: "Wolfen"
1982: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
1982: "48 Hours"
1983: "Gorky Park"
1983: "Uncommon Valor"
1983: "The Dresser"
1983: "Testament"
1983: "Something Wicked This Way Comes"
1983: "Brainstorm"
1983: "Krull"
1984: "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"
1985: "Commando"
1985: "Cocoon"
1986: "The Name of the Rose"
1986: "Captain EO"
1986: "An American Tail" (Academy Award nomination, 2 Grammy awards, Golden Globe nomination)
1986: "Aliens" (Academy Award nomination)
1987: "*batteries not included"
1987: "Project X"
1988: "Willow"
1988: "The Land Before Time"
1988: "Cocoon: The Return"
1988: "Vibes"
1989: "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids"
1989: "Field of Dreams" (Academy Award nomination, 2 Grammy nominations)
1989: "Glory" (Grammy Award, Golden Globe nomination)
1990: "I Love You to Death"
1990: "Another 48 Hours"
1991: "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West"
1991: "The Rocketeer"
1991: "Class Action"
1992: "Patriot Games
1992: "Sneakers"
1992: "Thunderheart"
1992: "Unlawful Entry"
1993: "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story"
1993: "Searching for Bobby Fischer"
1993: "The Man Without a Face"
1993: "Once Upon a Forest"
1993: "Swing Kids"
1993: "The Pelican Brief"
1993: "A Far Off Place"
1994: "Clear and Present Danger"
1994: "The Pagemaster"
1994: "Legends of the Fall" (Golden Globe nomination)
1995: "Casper"
1995: "Apollo 13" (Academy Award nomination)
1995: "Balto"
1995: "Braveheart" (Academy Award & Golden Globe nominations, Best Original Score)
1995: "Jade"
1995: "Jumanji"
1996: "The Spitfire Grill"
1996: "Ransom"
1996: "Courage Under Fire"
1997: "The Devil's Own"
1997: "Titanic" (2 Academy Awards, 2 Golden Globe awards, 4 Grammy awards)
1998: "Deep Impact"
1998: "The Mask of Zorro"
1998: "Mighty Joe Young"
1999: "Bicentennial Man"
2000: "The Perfect Storm"
2001: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
2001: "Enemy at the Gates"
2001: "Iris"
2001: "A Beautiful Mind" (Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe nominations, Best Original Score)
2002: "Windtalkers"
2002: "The Four Feathers"
2003: "The Missing"
2003: "House of Sand and Fog" (Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score)
2004: "Bobby Jones: A Stroke of Genius"
2004: "Troy"
2004: "The Forgotten"
2005: "The Chumscrubber"
2005: "Flightplan"
2005: "The Legend of Zorro"
2005: "The New World"
2006: "All the King's Men"
2006: "Apocalypto" - see Apocalypto (soundtrack)
2007: "In Bloom"
2008: "The Spiderwick Chronicles" "(in post-production)"
2008: "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" "(in post-production)"
2009: "Avatar" "(in production)"
Other work
Horner can be seen briefly in a cameo appearance as a crewman in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".
External links
(James Horner) at the Internet Movie Database
(James Horner discography (Music City))
(JamesHorner.de - Fansite (in German))
(James Horner) at Soundtrackguide.net
(James Horner Fan Site) with sheet music and midi tracks
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about James Horner.
