Composers
by dr-neo17 | created - 26 May 2020 | updated - 26 May 2020 | Public1. Hans Zimmer
Composer | Gladiator
German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to ...
2. James Newton Howard
Music_department | King Kong
James Newton Howard attended the University of Southern California's music school, but dropped out to tour with Elton John, and eventually compose music for film and television. He started with Head Office (1985) in 1985. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards. He currently is a songwriter, ...
3. James Horner
Music_department | Titanic
James Horner began studying piano at the age of five, and trained at the Royal College of Music in London, England, before moving to California in the 1970s. After receiving a bachelor's degree in music at USC, he would go on to earn his master's degree at UCLA and teach music theory there. He ...
4. Lisa Gerrard
Soundtrack | Gladiator
With a vision and vocal style that is as unique as it is precise and all-embracing, Lisa Gerrard has established herself as one of the world's most highly acclaimed film composers, winning a Golden Globe for her work on the score for 'Gladiator' with Hans Zimmer.
Lisa also received an Oscar ...
5. Ramin Djawadi
Composer | Game of Thrones
Ramin Djawadi is an Iranian-German film score composer known for composing the hit HBO series Game of Thrones and the Marvel films Blade: Trinity, Iron Man and Eternals. He also composed Clash of the Titans, A Wrinkle in Time, Pacific Rim, Westworld, Gears of War 4 and 5, Medal of Honor, Open ...
6. John Williams
Composer | Jurassic Park
As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar ...
7. Ennio Morricone
Composer | The Hateful Eight
A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first ...
8. Thomas Newman
Music_department | Skyfall
Thomas Newman is an American film score composer. He was born in Los Angeles. His father was notable film score composer Alfred Newman (1900-1970). The Newman family is of Russian-Jewish descent, and includes several other well-known musicians. Thomas' mother Martha Louis Montgomery (1920-2005) ...
9. Alan Menken
Soundtrack | Beauty and the Beast
Alan Menken is an American composer, songwriter, music conductor, director and record producer.
Menken is best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores and songs for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and ...
10. Vangelis
Composer | Blade Runner
Vangelis was a composer and performer who worked almost exclusively with electronic instruments. With Jean-Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield in the 1970s, Vangelis was a pioneer in the instrumental music and a main influence in the creation of the musical genre "new age," a style related to spiritual,...
11. Michael Kamen
Soundtrack | Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Michael Kamen was born on April 15, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Don Juan DeMarco (1994) and X-Men (2000). He was married to Sandra Keenan. He died on November 18, 2003 in London, England, UK.
12. Jerry Goldsmith
Composer | L.A. Confidential
Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk ...
13. Elliot Goldenthal
Music_department | Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Elliot Goldenthal is an Academy Award-winning composer best known for his original music scores for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007), among his other works.
He was born on May 2, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a house-painter, and his mother was a seamstress. ...
14. Alan Silvestri
Composer | The Polar Express
In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and ...
15. Giorgio Moroder
Soundtrack | Top Gun
Giorgio Moroder was born on April 26, 1940 in Urtijëi, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy. He is a composer and actor, known for Top Gun (1986), Over the Top (1987) and Flashdance (1983).
16. Danny Elfman
Music_department | The Nightmare Before Christmas
As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's ...
17. Wojciech Kilar
Composer | Bram Stoker's Dracula
Wojciech Kilar was born on July 17, 1932 in Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine]. He was a composer, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Ninth Gate (1999) and The Pianist (2002). He was married to Barbara Pomianowska. He died on December 29, 2013 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland.
18. John Debney
Composer | The Jungle Book
Throughout his legendary career, composer John Debney has seen himself in equal demand for holiday classics such as Hocus Pocus and Elf, tentpoles like Iron Man 2, The Jungle Book, and The Greatest Showman, and the powerful epic The Passion of the Christ, for which he received an Academy Award ...
19. Randy Edelman
Music_department | The Last of the Mohicans
Randy Edelman was born on June 10, 1947 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), xXx (2002) and Anaconda (1997). He has been married to Jackie DeShannon since June 3, 1976. They have one child.
20. Matt Dunkley
Music_department | Barbie
Grammy nominated Matt Dunkley is an international leading orchestrator, arranger and conductor, who has also managed to develop a successful parallel career as a film, TV and theatre composer.
He has worked on over 200 movies, including; No Time To Die, Judy, Stan & Ollie, Vice, Black Swan, ...
21. Will Jennings
Soundtrack | Titanic
Will Jennings was born on June 27, 1944 in Kilgore, Texas, USA. He is a composer, known for Titanic (1997), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and A Beautiful Mind (2001).
22. Benjamin Wallfisch
Composer | Blade Runner 2049
Golden Globe, BAFTA, 2x Grammy, Emmy and 5x World Soundtrack Award nominated composer Benjamin Wallfisch has worked on over 80 feature films, collaborating with directors including Ron Howard, Ted Melfi, Andy Muschietti, Christopher Nolan, David F. Sandberg, Leigh Whannell, Gore Verbinski, and ...
23. Joshua Bell
Music_department | Defiance
Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1967, Joshua Bell began playing the violin at age 4. Growing up, he didn't focus on the violin exclusively. His other interests included video games, computers, cars, and sports. In 1978, he was a national tennis champion. However, at age 11 he attended the ...
24. Lebo M.
Soundtrack | Congo
Lebo M. was born on July 11, 1964 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is an actor and composer, known for Congo (1995), The Lion King (1994) and Tears of the Sun (2003).
25. Blake Neely
Composer | Greyhound
Blake Neely was born on April 28, 1969 in Paris, Texas, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Greyhound (2020), All American (2018) and You (2018).
26. Jóhann Jóhannsson
Composer | Last and First Men
Jóhann Jóhannsson was born on September 19, 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was a composer and writer, known for Last and First Men (2020), The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015). He died on February 9, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
27. Trevor Jones
Composer | Cliffhanger
As a child in Cape Town, Trevor Jones lived opposite the Gem Cinema. The theater was so old and worn out that there was often a loss of the soundtrack, which caused him to realize its power. The fact that everyone in his family worked in film or the theater made it easy to get support in his career...
28. The Lyndhurst Orchestra
Music_department | Hannibal
The Lyndhurst Orchestra is known for Hannibal (2001), Lost Souls (2000) and Hannibal (2013).
29. London Symphony Orchestra
Soundtrack | Children of Men
In March 1935 the musicians of the LSO gathered at London's old Scala Theatre in Tottenham Street to perform the music for the new film Things to Come and, following 14 full orchestral sessions, started a veritable revolution in film production history.
Until that time, recorded film music had ...
30. Gavin Greenaway
Music_department | The Hunger Games
Gavin Greenaway is a British Emmy ® award-winning pianist, composer and conductor with an extensive catalog of achievements: conducting over 100 feature film and television soundtracks, composing for major entertainment and cultural events, and producing and songwriting with chart-topping artists.
...
31. Richard Harvey
Composer | Le Petit Prince
Since graduating from the Royal College of Music in 1972, at the age of 18, Richard Harvey has been a ubiquitous and diverse presence on the London music scene, not only as a prolific composer and conductor but an exceptional virtuoso performer of almost 700 instruments from around the world - ...
32. Bruce Fowler
Music_department | Inception
Bruce Fowler was born on July 10, 1947 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Inception (2010), V for Vendetta (2005) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).
33. Nick Glennie-Smith
Music_department | The Rock
Nick Glennie-Smith was born on October 3, 1951 in London, England, UK. He is a composer, known for The Rock (1996), We Were Soldiers (2002) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). He is married to Jan Glennie-Smith. They have four children.
34. Klaus Badelt
Composer | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Composer Klaus Badelt started his musical career writing and producing music for dozens of highly successful movies and commercials in his native Germany. In 1998, Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer invited him to move his musical home to Media Ventures in Santa Monica, CA. Since then, Klaus has ...
35. Kevin Kaska
Composer | The Orville
Kevin Kaska is known for The Orville (2017), Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Interstellar (2014).
36. Brad Fiedel
Music_department | True Lies
Extremely talented, prolific and versatile composer Brad Fiedel was born on March 10, 1951 in New York City. His mother was a dancer and his father was a composer and musician. Brad started out as a keyboardist for Hall & Oates. Fiedel first began composing music for movies in the mid-70s for such ...
37. Basil Poledouris
Composer | RoboCop
Basil Poledouris was born on August 21, 1945 in Kansas City. He started taking piano lessons when he was 7 years old. Eventually, he went on to become a student at USC, where he studied the arts of directing, cinematography, editing, sound and, of course, music. It was also at USC he met John Milius...
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