Howard Shore

by Stacia Proefrock
Howard Shore has composed the scores for over 50 films, including The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, After Hours, and Seven. His collaborations with David Cronenberg have resulted in scores for the films The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, and Crash, spanning a nearly 20-year period by the year 2001. Shore's formal education came at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. From 1969-1972 he recorded with the group Lighthouse. He was one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live and served as its musical director from 1975-1980. In 2000, Shore began work on one of the most expansive projects of his career when he signed on to produce scores for film adaptations of the Lord of the Rings series. He spent a year just working on the first film, using Tolkien's texts and drawing from eighth and ninth century music sources to try to evoke the books' magical worlds. Upon the completion of the Lords series in 2001, Shore created the scores for several Hollywood blockbusters including Panic Room (2002), Aviator (2005), A History of Violence (2005), The Departed (2006), and The Last Mimzy (2007).