Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Debussy, Verdi, Strauss & Brahms. All great composers of their time. All these men created many beautiful compositions, some I like very well in fact, such as Debussy's Claire de Lune. Still something in their music seems to be lacking.
        Despite their great achievments, awards, recitals and recognition, I'm still not as impressed with their music as I am with composers today.
        If you were to ask me who my favorite composer of all time is, I would indubitably say James Horner. James Horner does what is called film scoring, better known to the people as making a movie soundtrack.
        James Horner was born in Los Angeles, California on August 14, 1953. Although born in Los Angeles, James was raised in London, England. At the early age of 5 years old, he began to study piano. Later in life, he attended the very prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London, where he earned his Bachelor's Degree in Music.
       After completing his time at the Royal Music Academy, he traveled back to California where he earned his Master's Degree and Phd in Music Composition and Theory. He went on to teach Music Theory  at UCLA in the early 1970s.
       While working at UCLA, he received a call from the AFI or the American Film Institute. The AFI requested Horner to write the score for the the 1978 film, The Drought. His progress with his own concert piece, "Spectral Shimmers", was not going very smoothly so he accepted the offer from the AFI  and decided to attempt scoring the film. Horner found that he loved to score for films and stayed with it. He scored many films for the AFI and went on to work for Roger Corman at Roger Corman's World Pictures.
       Despite the low budget films Corman put together, James was still dedicated and continued to score for them. James got recognized by Hollywood executives during his work for Corman. He got offered a chance to score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.
       Horner's career took off overnight and he landed in the bigtime. James scores for several successful films a year. He still works with several of his close friends including Ian Underwood, a synthesizer programmer who helps James with synthesizers and unique instruments in his studio.
       Horner continues to reside in Southern California with his wife and two daughters.
       

My Thoughts On James Horner

     I first discovered Horner's brilliant music in 1997 at Danberry Cinemas on the opening night on Titanic the movie, and since then, I have never listened to one of his compositions that I didn't like. What I love so much about his music is he has something break through so to speak. He has feeling behind his music. It's not just meaningless notes and harmonies. His music, to me, has power. No music I've ever listened to gives me this feeling. I was amazed when I first heard it. It's a truly talented person like himself, that can take ordinary notes, rythems, and harmonies, none of them are musically or technically difficult. He can take these ordinary notes, rythems, and harmonies and make them sound so amazing. Horner has completed 110 full film scores since 1978. It may not seem like it but that is a relatively short amount of time for a composer to complete such a big number of compositions. Making sure the parts fit together correctly, making sure the rythems fit, making transitions, key changes, time changes, resting points, dynamics. Not an easy task. James Horner is indubitably the most admirable composer/conductor/musician I've ever had the pleasure of listening to.

The Complete Works of James Horner

James Horner Sound Files