For Howard Shore, the symphony isn't finished yet By Glen Schaefer, The Province November 18, 2010
Canadian composer Howard Shore wrote 11 hours of music for Lord of the Rings. Now he tackles The Hobbit.
Photograph by: Getty Images, The ProvinceMiddle Earth has been good to Canadian-born composer Howard Shore, who sees his Oscar-winning score for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy as his crowning achievement.
"The piece is very close to me, I spent close to four years writing it," says Shore.
His Rings symphony has gone on to a life on the concert stage, the latest stage being next week's performance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
The performance, conducted by Markus Huber, and featuring soprano Kaitlyn Lusk, will also include the Vancouver Bach Choir, the Vancouver Bach Children's Chorus, and images by Tolkien artists projected on video screens in the hall.
The two-hour, 10-minute symphony takes the listener through the entire Lord of the Rings story, although Shore wrote a total of nearly 11 hours of music for the three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels.
"Really, everything I knew about composing, orchestrating, conducting -- everything I had learned about music was in it," says Shore over the phone from his New York office.
"I had probably done about 70 films before I recorded and wrote the music for Lord of the Rings. It was such a wonderful book to write to, one of the most complex fantasy worlds ever created."
Shore keeps in close contact with the principals when his symphony is conducted, in this case German conductor Huber, who has conducted the work about 60 times.
Since its concert premiere in 2003, the symphony has been performed about 160 times all over the world.
"These symphonic concerts are always done locally, that's really the fun of doing it," says Shore.
"People study the books, they learn his languages. The choirs are learning the right phonetics, they have to learn five Tolkien languages that he created specifically. Each one has its own sound."
Shore got his musical start in Toronto, where he was a member of the 1970s pop band Lighthouse. He moved to New York to lead the Saturday Night Live band, helped Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi put together The Blues Brothers and segued into movie soundtracks, ranging from dark David Cronenberg films to lighter fare with Robin Williams ( Mrs. Doubtfire) and Tom Hanks ( Big).
And now it looks like Shore is going back to Middle Earth with Rings director Peter Jackson. The long-awaited two-part movie adaptation of Tolkien's The Hobbit is in the works.
"We've talked about making these movies for many years, at least since 2002," Shore says.
"It looks like finally it's going to be happening. I'll be working on it for the next three years -- it's going to consume a lot of my time and work now."
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IN CONCERT
THE LORD OF THE RINGS SYMPHONY
Where: Orpheum Theatre, corner of Seymours and Smythe streets
When: Nov. 27 at 8 p.m., Nov. 28 at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $35-$65 at 604-876-3434 or vancouversymphony.ca
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