World renowned composer Hans Zimmer is currently experiencing the most prolific time in his distinguished career. In 1994, Zimmer created the score for the phenomenally successful film, The Lion King, Disney's highest grossing animated film of all time which also proved to be the most successful soundtrack in the history of Walt Disney Records, selling over 12 million copies worldwide, and making it the top selling album of the year.



For his work on The Lion King, Zimmer received the Academy Award, the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, 2 Grammies, the American Music Award for Best Album of the Year and the Chicago Film Critics Award for Best Score.

German born, Zimmer is a pioneer in the use of digital samplers and synthesizers, advanced computer technology, electronic keyboards and their successful integration with the traditional orchestra in music for film and television.

Zimmer began his career as a composer writing jingles and teamed up with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes as "The Buggles" to produce the worldwide hit, "Video Killed the Radio Star" and subsequent album "The Age of Plastic." Once meeting and working with the film composer Stanley Myers, Zimmer began to realize the importance of incorporating the two music forms, electronic and classical. The two set up the "Lillie Yard Studio" in London which has the very latest state of the art music technology. They worked very successfully on Jerzy Skolimovski's Moonlighting, Success Is The Best Revenge, The Lightship, Nicholas Roeg's Insignificance, and The Castaway. They went on to compose the box office hit My Beautiful Launderette which won Best Picture Evening Standard Awards.

In 1986, Zimmer worked solo on the film Vardo and worked with Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne to produce the soundtrack for the award winning epic The Last Emperor. This was followed by a re-teaming with Stanley Myers for the score of Nature and the Beast. He then wrote scores for Philip Saville's Wonderland, and Paperhouse for director Bernard Rose. Then for Vestron he composed the music for the Faye Dunaway, Klaus Maria Brandauer feature, Burning Secret.

The turning point in Zimmer's career came after composing the music for a small budget film about South Aftrica entitled A World Apart. As a result, he was asked to write the Oscar nominated score for the 1988's Academy Award winning Best Picture Rain Man which starred Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. He went on to score Ridley Scott's Black Rain, Driving Miss Daisy, Bird On A Wire, Days of Thunder and Pacific Heights which allowed him to work with Oscar winning director John Schlesinger.

From 1991 to 1996, Zimmer completed the scores for Peter Weir's Green Card, Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise, Ron Howard's Backdraft, Richard Donner's Radio Flyer, and Franc Roddman's thriller, K-2. From there he went on to write the songs and music for director John Avilidsen's The Power of One. He later worked with Penny Marshall on A League of Their Own, Barry Levinson on Toys and Tony Scott on Quentin Tarantino's True Romance.

He also composed the scores for the Disney hit Cool Runnings, the James L. Brooks feature I'll Do Anything, Bille August's House of Spirits, John Badham's Drop Zone, the box office hit Crimson Tide, Starring Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, Nine Months directed by Christopher Columbus and Someth ing To Talk About, starring Julia Roberts. 1996 saw the release of several diverse Zimmer scores including the 20th Century Fox film Broken Arrow, starring John Travolta, Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, directed by John Woo and Brain Henson's Muppet Treasure Island, starring Tim Curry, distributed by Buena Vista Pictures, the Whitney Houston, Denzel Washington film The Preacher's Wife, and most recently the acclaimed films As Good as it Gets, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator and Mission Impossible 2.

Hans' use of samplers and music technology is no more apparent than at his Media Ventures studio in L.A. Here a team of composers and sound designers works tirelessly, constructing film sountracks and various music projects. Among Media Venture's collection of custom built synthesizers, digital mixers and effects is a bank of no less than 20 Roland samplers which Hans uses to generate a slew of instrument sounds ranging from symphony orchestras, to African choirs, to acoustic and electric guitars.

Recently, Hans offered up his private collection of vintage acoustic and electric guitars on two Spectrasonics sample libraries called Hans Zimmer Guitars volume 1 & volume 2. Produced performed and recorded by Bob Daspit, in conjunction with Spectrasonics, Hans Zimmer Guitars is the premier guitar disc, featuring individual multi-samples and phrases. A pioneering sampling technique called "Chromazones" on volume one permits the use of sampled phrases in any key signature, allowing the creation of various chord progressions without losing the natural feel of a soulful guitar performance. Luscious acoustic guitars feature note bends on high velocities for authentic performances. The electric guitar multi-samples have up to 12 velocities capturing every nuance of distortion for aggressive rhythm parts. In all there are over 20 distinct guitar sounds including a Martin Six String Steel, a Guild 12 String, a Strat/JC-120, a BD Strat, a Paul Reed Smith "Dragon," a Cherry Gibson Les Paul Deluxe and many others.

More info on Hans Zimmer at:
www.mediaventures.com

Hans Zimmer's Film Scores