Artist of the Week - James Horner

Something a bit more unusual than the normal Artist of the Week when I pick a Band or an solo Artist and someone that I admire for there talent as a composer of film music. This weeks Artist of the week is the composer James Horner.

I came across his music really because of the film Breaveheart although I must have heard his music in other films many times over. Many might know of him from the films Titanic, A Beautiful Mind or even from Star Trek. The number of scores he has written for films is countless. In the days before mp3 people would put on the internet midi files of his music which people could download and play through the computer or playback through keyboards. Midi files were the data light versions of the mp3's of today. All the same there is something hunting and memorable about the music he composes and I have picked three tracks here that I feel reflect that, but these are just three of many.

James Horner was born in America in 1953 and he is a composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements as you will here from the examples of his music in this post. He has now been working for over three decades and has scored over 100 films, with his score for 1997 film Titanic being the best selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time. He has received two Academy awards, and a total of 10 Oscar nominations and in addition to this he has won numerous other awards, including the Golden Globe Award and the Grammy Award. He started playing piano at the age of five and early years were spent in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music, before moving back to the America to continue his studies. Eventually he broke in to the film music business with the score of the 1979 film, The Lady in Red and within three years he was starting to compose music for major Hollywood releases. He has never faltered in the last 30 years producing one impressive score after another. He has to be one of the great film music composers of modern times.

This is not the sort of music I might listen to in a car, especially during the day but I do have many varied musical tastes and about the only music I don't like is opera and some songs from the past that get over played on the radio occasionally, mainly on stations like BBC Radio Two. Although I won't have it playing on the CD on the way to work, I do have a lot of work to do this week and I can see myself dipping into some of his music as I do all the preparation for the course I will be doing this half term. I hope you enjoy the change and it's back to normal next week.