Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is an Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy Award-winning Canadian composer, best known for composing the scores to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and films of David Cronenberg. He is also a prolific composer of concert works, and is currently writing his first opera, The Fly, based on the plot (though not the score) of Cronenberg's 1986 film.
He was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Canada, and studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. From 1969 to 1972, he performed with the group Lighthouse. In 1974, Shore wrote the music for Canadian magician Doug Henning's magical/musical "Spellbound" co-starring fledgling actress Jennifer Dale. He was the musical director for the television show Saturday Night Live from 1975 to 1980, appearing in many musical sketches including the 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. He also suggested the name for the Blues Brothers to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.
Shore has written the music for such various major film productions as The Silence of the Lambs, Mrs. Doubtfire, Philadelphia, Ed Wood, Se7en, Dogma, High Fidelity, Panic Room, The Departed and The Aviator, the last of which earned him a Golden Globe. Since The Brood in 1979, he has been a consistent collaborator with David Cronenberg, scoring all his subsequent films except The Dead Zone (1983, scored by Michael Kamen). His score for Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is notable for his collaboration with famed avant-garde jazz musician Ornette Coleman, who praised Shore's work.
Main article: Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
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 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.
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 him and Peter Jackson.
Despite this, Shore has a cameo near the end of King Kong as the conductor of the pit orchestra in the theatre.
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