Biography
James Horner was born August 14,1953 and was
raised in London where, he attended the Royal College of Music.
In the 70's, he also attended USC and UCLA where he
recieved his Bachelors and Masters degree respectivly. After
recieving his Ph.D from UCLA he composed a classical piece
entitled "Spectral Shimmers" which was performed by the
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1978. Discouraged by the
amount of time, work, and effort along with fighting for rehersal
time only to see it performed once. Horner resorted to
scoring films for the American Film Institute. While at A.F.I. he
met Roger Corman a producer of low budget sci-fi/horror flicks.
While working for Corman he scored "Battle Beyond The
Stars" and the cult classic "Humanoids From The
Deep".
In 1981, Horner recieved his first major
studio project "The Hand" directed by Oliver Stone, but
1982 set the tone for the rest of James Horner's career. By
scoring two very successful yet diverse films he showed that not
only could he score more than one type of film, but he could do
them back to back. First, he scored "Star Trek II The Wrath
Of Khan" which featured a 94 piece orchestra. Secondly, he
scored "48 Hours" a police action/comedy film featuring
synthesizers and percussion. These two films put James Horner
amongst the top composers in the industry.
In
1983, Horner composed the music for Peter Yates'
"Krull". This score featured the London Symphony
Orchestra and at the age of 29 he may be the youngest maestro to
ever conduct this orchestra. At the end of the nine day scoring
session he recieved a standing ovation from the performers. This
film was a very poor performer at the box office, but is a Horner
fan favorite. The same year he scored "Something Wicked This
Way Comes" based on the Ray Bradbury novel. This film was
very important in many ways for Mr. Horner. This film was
his first time working with Walt Disney Films. This score also
caught the attention of an up and coming director named Ron
Howard. Ron Howard called on Horner to compose the music to a
very unique film. 1985's Cocoon which featured brilliant effects
for the sci-fi moments. Needed a score that would tug on the tear
ducts during the tender moments, rather than amplify the aliens
and space ships.
In
1986 Horner would place more notches on his belt. He scored his
first animated film "An American Tail". This sweet
little cartoon, starring a mouse names Fievel gained Horner many
accolades. He recieved two Grammys with this score "Best
Song From A Motion Picture" and "Song Of The Year"
for "Somewhere Out There" co-written with Cynthia Weil
and Barry Mann. In this year he also scored
"Aliens" directed by James Cameron who Horner met while
working at Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He recieved an
Academy Award Nomination for this chilling score.
Another film that Horner would recieve a Grammy for was
"Glory". The Civil War drama directed by Edward Zwick
features the Harlem Boys Choir in this lushly orchestrated score.
He also scored Field of Dreams in 1989. This music was very
different than "Glory" using mostly synths and piano he
recieved another Academy Award Nomination for this baseball
themed movie.
It
wasn't until 1994 that Horner would recieve another award
nomination. "Legends Of The Fall" the second film he
worked on with Edward Zwick was nominated for a Golden Glaobe
Award. This theme driven score led James Horner into his most
successful year.
In 1995, Horner scored six films and recieved
two Academy Award Nominations. One for "Braveheart"
which won Best Picture and "Apollo 13". He also scored
kids movies "Jumanji", "Casper", and
"Balto" along with the sexy-thriller Jade.
After a good year in
1996 which featured scores for "Ransom". "The
Spitfire Grill", "To Gillian On Her 37th
Birthday", and Ed Zwick's "Courage Under Fire" he
followed in 97' with his slowest years of date scoring only two
films. "The Devil's Own" and James Cameron's epic
"Titanic" which garnered two Golden Globe Awards and
two Oscar nominations.
Horner is only 43 years
old so their is plenty more music to come. Upcoming projects are
"Mask Of Zorro", "Deep Impact", and Disney's
"The Mighty Joe Young". James Horner and his wife
Sarah, along with their children live in Calabas, California.
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