JAMES HORNER

Born: Los Angeles, California, 14 August 1953

Genre: Soundtrack

Best-selling album since 1990: Music from the Motion Picture Titanic (1997)

Hit songs since 1990: "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic )"

James Horner is one of Hollywood's most successful soundtrack composers, having won Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for the huge commercial smash Titanic (1997). A prolific composer equally comfortable with epic and personal emotions, period and futuristic settings, romances, horror movies and music for children's stories, he has also been honored with nominations for Apollo 13, Braveheart, Field of Dreams, Aliens, and A Beautiful Mind.

In more than one hundred films that Horner has scored since late 1979, he has demonstrated mastery of both conventional symphony instrumentation and synthesizers. He delights in spicing his works with traditional Irish colors and references, and favors strong melodic motifs with dramatic counterthemes or contrasting backdrops. He has forged an especially productive creative relationship with the filmmaker Ron Howard.

Horner grew up in London, began studying piano at age five, and attended the Royal Academy of Music. Relocating to California in the early 1970s, he earned a B.A. degree in music from the University of Southern California and then a Ph.D. in music composition and theory at UCLA. While teaching music theory there, he was offered the job of scoring a film by the American Film Institute. He took to scoring as an opportunity to have his compositions heard and continued collaborating on AFI projects until being lured by horror movie-maker Roger Corman to his New World Pictures.

Horner's first several pictures—including two Star Trek movies of a series he inherited briefly from the veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith—depended on his use of electronics to enhance and amplify live musicians. Horner has credited music friends such as Ian Underwood, a former member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, as sources of inspiration on his efforts. But he proved equal to full symphony orchestras with his scores for Willow (1988) and Land Before Time (1988).

The next year, the commercial success of Field of Dreams (1989) and critical acclaim for Glory (1989) brought new attention to Horner's contributions. His theme for the latter, a Civil War drama, was licensed several times for commercial use. Horner's songwriting abilities came to the fore with An American Tail (1986), an animated musical about a Jewish mouse immigrating to the United States, and its sequel, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He had a banner year in 1995, producing Academy Award–nominated scores for Apollo 13 and Braveheart, as well as soundtracks for the animated films Casper and Balto, and the Robin Williams vehicle Jumanji.

Horner's score for Titanic (1997) secured his future. The love theme, a ballad sung grandly by Celine Dion, is countered by ghostly pipes and percussion, lush but not cloying string sections, choirs, and harps. He had employed similar Irish touches in previous soundtracks, most notably Patriot Games (1992) and Braveheart (1995). After Titanic Horner exhibited a new interest in cinematic personal portraits, such as those of the writer Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001) and mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. in A Beautiful Mind (2001). Horner's music for Windtalkers (2002) depicts a Marine's crisis of conscience guarding a Navajo code-talker in the Pacific threater during World War II.

Nothing succeeds in the movie business like success, and it seems that Horner's past accomplishments will provide him with further opportunities to exploit his favorite tropes—especially his use of Irish motifs—while also giving him the chance to expand his array of devices and source materials.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (GNP Crescendo, 1982); Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (GNP Cresendo, 1984); Cocoon (Polydor, 1985); An American Tail (MCA Records, 1986); Willow (Virgin, 1988); The Land Before Time (MCA, 1988); Field of Dreams (Novus/RCA, 1989); Glory (Virgin, 1989); An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (MCA, 1991); Patriot Games (Milan, 1992); Thunderheart (Intrada, 1993); Legends of the Fall (Epic Soundtrax, 1994); Apollo 13 (MCA, 1995); Braveheart (London, 1995); Casper (MCA, 1995); Jumanji (Epic Soundtrax, 1995); Titanic (Sony Classical, 1997); The Devil's Own (Beyond Music, 1997); The Mask of Zorro (Sony Classical, 1998); How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Interscope, 2000); The Perfect Storm (Sony Classical, 2000); Iris (Sony Classical, 2001); A Beautiful Mind (Decca, 2001); Windtalkers (RCA Victor, 2002).

howard mandel