Howard Shore

Howard Shore, Toronto-born and raised in a Jewish family, basically lived and breathed music from the moment he could reach a piano. By eight, he was already studying hard, and by thirteen, he was jamming in bands, dreaming about making music his whole life. He honed his craft at Berklee in Boston—pretty much the dream school for any music nerd. In the late '60s and early '70s, Shore rocked out with the jazz fusion group Lighthouse for a few years. Then, the '70s hit, and he pivoted to scoring for stage shows and TV. He even wrote music for Doug Henning’s magic act and became musical director for Saturday Night Live when it was just starting out—thanks to his old pal Lorne Michaels. Come 1978, Shore kicked off his film career with a score for a random B-movie, then followed it up with David Cronenberg’s horror flick, “The Brood.” That kicked off a long creative bromance—Cronenberg kept bringing him back for nearly every movie after. The '80s and '90s? Busy, busy, busy. He worked with big-name directors like Scorsese (“After Hours”) and Penny Marshall (“Big”), and scored “The Silence of the Lambs,” which got him a BAFTA nomination. By the '90s, he was all over Hollywood—think “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Seven,” and tons more. Then the 2000s hit, and boom—“The Lord of the Rings” scores happened. Oscars, Grammys, Golden Globes, you name it—he won. Those epic soundtracks basically made him a legend. He stuck with Scorsese for a lot of films and knocked out scores for “The Aviator,” “The Hobbit” trilogy, and even “Twilight: Eclipse.” The guy’s a powerhouse, just keeps cranking out iconic music.