Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian composer, conductor, and orchestrator known for his film scores. He has created music for more than 80 films, including the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He frequently works with director David Cronenberg, scoring all but one of Cronenberg’s films since 1979. He also collaborated with director Martin Scorsese on six of Scorsese’s films.

Shore has written music for concerts, including an opera called The Fly, based on Cronenberg’s 1986 film, which Shore also scored. The opera premiered in Paris on July 2, 2008. He also composed a short piece titled Fanfare for the Wanamaker Organ and the Philadelphia Orchestra and a short overture for the Swiss 21st Century Symphony Orchestra. Shore also composed music for television, including serving as the original musical director for the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1975 to 1980.

He won three Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings, including one for the song “Into the West,” which he shared with Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh. In addition to his three Oscars, Shore has also won three Golden Globe Awards, four Grammy Awards, three Genie Awards, and nine Canadian Screen Awards.

Early life and career

Howard Shore was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Jewish parents named Bernice (née Ash) and Mac Shore. He began studying music when he was about 8 or 9 years old. He learned to play many different instruments and joined bands when he was 13 and 14 years old. At age 13, he met Lorne Michaels at summer camp and became close friends. This friendship later helped shape his career. By age 17, Shore decided he wanted to make music a part of his adult life. After finishing high school at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, he studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

From 1969 to 1972, Shore was a member of the jazz fusion band Lighthouse. In 1970, he became the music director for Lorne Michaels and Hart Pomerantz’s TV program, The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour, which did not last long. In 1974, Shore wrote the music for Canadian magician Doug Henning’s magic musical Spellbound. From 1975 to 1980, he served as the musical director for Michaels’ influential late-night NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. During this time, Shore participated in many musical sketches, such as "Howard Shore and His All-Nurse Band," and wore a beekeeper costume for a performance of the Slim Harpo song "I’m a King Bee" by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Shore also suggested the name "The Blues Brothers" to Aykroyd and Belushi.

Film scoring

Howard Shore's first movie score was for the low-budget thriller I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses (1978), followed by David Cronenberg's first major film, The Brood (1979). He then wrote the music for all of Cronenberg's later films, except for The Dead Zone (1983), which was scored by Michael Kamen. His first film not directed by Cronenberg was After Hours (1985), directed by Martin Scorsese. He later scored The Fly (1986), again directed by Cronenberg. Two years later, he composed the score for Big (1988), directed by Penny Marshall and starring Tom Hanks. He then wrote music for two more Cronenberg films: Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991).

In 1991, Shore composed the score for the highly acclaimed film The Silence of the Lambs, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins and directed by Jonathan Demme. He received his first BAFTA nomination for the score. The film won five major Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Shore is the only living composer to have scored a "Top Five" Oscar-winning film.

In 1993, he wrote scores for M. Butterfly (another collaboration with Cronenberg), Philadelphia (his second film with Jonathan Demme), and Mrs. Doubtfire, directed by Chris Columbus. Philadelphia and Mrs. Doubtfire were both successful films, with Philadelphia earning Tom Hanks his first Oscar.

In 1994, Shore scored The Client, Ed Wood, and Nobody's Fool. Ed Wood is notable because it was one of the three films directed by Tim Burton that did not feature a score by Danny Elfman.

From 1995 to 2001, Shore wrote music for many films, including two by David Fincher: Seven (1995) and The Game (1997), and The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996), directed by Michael Lehmann. He also collaborated with Cronenberg on two films and worked on Tom Hanks' directorial debut, That Thing You Do!. He scored Kevin Smith’s Dogma (1999) and the 2000 film The Cell.

Major success came in 2001 with his score for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in the highly acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The news that Shore would score the trilogy surprised some, since he was known for dark, ominous films and had never written music for an epic of this scale. However, the score was very successful and won Shore his first Oscar, as well as a Grammy Award. It also earned him nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

In 2002, Shore composed the scores for Panic Room, Gangs of New York (replacing Elmer Bernstein), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second film in the trilogy. The latter two films were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Although Shore’s score for The Two Towers was initially ineligible for submission due to a new rule, the rule change was postponed, and the score remained eligible. Shore did not receive an Academy Award nomination for The Two Towers, but he earned a BAFTA nomination for Gangs of New York.

In 2003, Shore wrote the score for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final film in the trilogy. The film was the most successful of the trilogy and the most successful of the year. Shore won his second Oscar for Best Original Score and a third for Best Original Song for "Into the West," which he shared with Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox. He also won his first Golden Globe, his third and fourth Grammy Awards (the fourth for Best Song), and was nominated for a third BAFTA. The scores for The Lord of the Rings, performed mainly by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, became some of the most successful film scores ever written and are the biggest success in Shore’s career. The scores have been repeatedly voted the best film score in history. A review site called Filmtracks described Shore’s scores as "arguably the most respected and impressive trilogy of music of all time: Howard Shore's massive work for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings." As of April 2023, Shore is currently in a legal dispute with Star-Entertainment Berlin over their unauthorized use of his music from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in low-quality concerts. A concert in April 2023 at the Portsmouth Guildhall was so poor that all audience members received full refunds, and the production company was banned from the venue permanently.

In 2004, Shore again worked with Martin Scorsese on The Aviator, this time with the Brussels Philharmonic. He won a second Golden Globe for the score, becoming the third composer to win consecutive Golden Globes in the Original Score category. He also received his sixth Grammy nomination and his fifth BAFTA nomination.

In 2005, Shore collaborated with David Cronenberg to score A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy). The film was successful and received two Oscar nominations. In 2006, he worked for the fourth time with Martin Scorsese on The Departed. The film was highly successful, winning four Oscars, including a long-awaited win for Scorsese and the Oscar for Best Picture.

Although Shore was originally commissioned to compose the soundtrack for King Kong, he was later replaced by James Newton Howard due to "differing creative aspirations for the score" between himself and the filmmakers. This was a mutual agreement between Shore and Peter Jackson. Despite this, Shore has a cameo near the end of the film as the conductor of the orchestra in the theater, performing parts of Max Steiner’s score for the original 1933 version of the film.

In 2007, Shore composed the music for Soul of the Ultimate Nation, an online multiplayer video game featuring Lydia Kavina on the theremin. That year, he also wrote scores for The Last Mimzy and Eastern Promises, the latter of which includes a section performed in concert as Shore’s Concertino for Violin Solo and Chamber Orchestra. Eastern Promises was another collaboration with David Cronenberg and earned Shore his fourth Golden Globe nomination. In 2008, he

Conducting and performing

Since 2004, Howard Shore has traveled around the world to work with local orchestras in performing his new symphonic version of his highly praised Lord of the Rings scores. This new piece is called The Lord of the Rings: Symphony in Six Movements. It includes two movements for each of the three movies, with a break between the second and third (or between the first and second film sections). During the concert, still images of sketches by John Howe and Alan Lee are shown on screens to connect the music to scenes from the films. Recently, Shore has been working on other projects, so other conductors, such as Markus Huber, Ludwig Wicki, Alexander Mickelthwaite, and John Mauceri, have led the orchestras.

On April 24, 2008, the North American Live to Projection debut of Fellowship of the Ring took place, with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performing the score live, conducted by Ludwig Wicki. Wicki also conducted the Filene Center Orchestra at the Wolf Trap Farm Park in Vienna, Virginia, on May 21 and 22, 2008, for the U.S. premiere of the Fellowship of the Ring Live to Projection.

On September 16, 2010, Shore conducted the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO Vienna) in performing "In Dreams" from Fellowship of the Ring at Hollywood in Vienna, Austria. Macy's commissioned Shore to write a Fanfare for the store's 150th anniversary, featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Wanamaker Organ, the world's largest playing pipe organ. This piece was first performed on September 27, 2008, in the Grand Court of Macy's Philadelphia Store, and received coverage in major East Coast newspapers.

Shore's opera The Fly had its first performance on July 2, 2008, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. It later premiered in the United States on September 7, 2008, at the Los Angeles Opera. The production was directed by David Cronenberg and conducted by Plácido Domingo. A new version of The Fly was staged by Theatre Trier in Germany in 2014, directed by Sebastian Welker and conducted by Joongbae Jee.

The Beijing Music Festival commissioned Shore to write Ruin and Memory, a piano concerto, for pianist Lang Lang. The world premiere of this piece occurred on October 11, 2010, with Lang Lang, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor Long Yu. His second concerto, Mythic Gardens, premiered on April 27, 2012, with Sophie Shao as the cellist, the American Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Leon Botstein.

Shore's song cycle A Palace Upon the Ruins had its first performance in 2014 at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival and the La Jolla SummerFest, featuring mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano. This work includes six songs with lyrics by Elizabeth Cotnoir.

Sea to Sea was commissioned by the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary of confederation. It premiered on July 2, 2017, in Moncton, New Brunswick, with soloist Measha Brueggergosman and conductor Antonio Delgado. The lyrics for this piece were written by Elizabeth Cotnoir.

The song cycle L'Aube premiered on October 19 and 20, 2017, in Toronto at Roy Thompson Hall, conducted by Peter Oundjian and performed by soloist Susan Platts. This work includes five songs with text by Elizabeth Cotnoir, and it was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

The Forest, a guitar concerto composed for Miloš Karadaglić, premiered in Ottawa on May 1 and 2, 2019, with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and conductor Alexander Shelley.

Television

In addition to writing the original theme song for Saturday Night Live and the closing theme, Shore also helped write the theme song for Late Night with Conan O'Brien with John Lurie. This theme was used again on The Tonight Show when Conan O'Brien became the host after Jay Leno.

In September 2021, it was reported that Shore was discussing composing the music for the upcoming The Lord of the Rings TV series on Amazon Prime Video, returning to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film projects. However, the series was eventually scored by Bear McCreary, while Shore wrote the main theme for the opening credits only.

Radio

Shore created a one-hour CBC Radio program that explored the use of music in thriller and suspense films. The program, titled "Unsettling Scores," also included discussions about radio dramas and other forms of media. It first aired on the show called Inside the Music.

Personal life

He is Ryan Shore's uncle. In 2004, Shore lived in Tuxedo Park, New York. Shore is married to Elizabeth Cotnoir, who is a writer, producer, and documentary filmmaker. He has one daughter.

Awards and honours

Howard Shore has received four Academy Award nominations. He has won three of these awards, including two for Best Original Score for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He also won the Oscar for Best Original Song for "Into the West" from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. His fourth Academy Award nomination was for his work on Hugo.

Howard Shore has received six Golden Globe nominations. He has won three Golden Globe awards: two for Best Original Score for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Aviator (2004), and one for Best Original Song for "Into the West" from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. This made him the second composer (after Alan Menken) to win consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Score. He also won three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Score for each of the Lord of the Rings films. He received a second Grammy Award in 2003 for the song "Into the West" from Return of the King. Howard Shore has received five BAFTA nominations but has not won any BAFTA awards.

On June 11, 2007, Shore was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree from York University in Toronto. This award was given during the university's commencement ceremony. The event highlighted Shore's contributions, with the Lord of the Rings theme music playing throughout the event.

Howard Shore has also received awards from the National Board of Review, Recording Academy Honors, The Broadcast Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics, Genie Award, World Soundtrack Award, New York's Gotham Award, and The Saturn Award for Science Fiction.

He was the first recipient of the Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Science Fiction Feature Film for The Last Mimzy.

In May 2008, Shore received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music during Berklee's commencement ceremony at the Agganis Arena.

On September 16, 2010, he was awarded the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award by the City of Vienna at the annual film music gala concert Hollywood in Vienna.

In 2012, he received Canada's Governor General's Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

In 2016, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions to the film and music industry.