In 1970, Howard Shore was a saxophone player with the band Lighthouse (One Fine Morning). In 1975, he helped create Saturday Night Live, and signed on as its first musical director. Despite the two endeavors, either of which would be enough to base a career upon, it was not until 1979 that Shore received his true calling: composing music for motion pictures. Since then, he has scored such films as Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Big, Philadelphia, Ed Wood, and most of David Cronenberg’s work, including Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, and M. Butterfly.
In the year 2000, he put the laurel wreath on his fame by collaborating with director Peter Jackson on perhaps the most ambitious project in cinema history, the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. With not just one but three wonderful scores that perfectly capture the many facets of Middle Earth, added to the rest of his masterful musical realizations, Shore has squarely earned a place next to Hermann, Williams, Korngold, and the other immortal composers of Hollywood.