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James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American composer, conductor, music producer and musician. Throughout his career, he has scored over 100 films of all scales and genres, earning multiple award nominations for his work. He is the recipient of a Grammy Award, Emmy Award, and eight Academy Award nominations. His best known film scores include ''Pretty Woman'' (1990), ''The Prince of Tides'' (1991), ''The Fugitive'' (1993), ''The Sixth Sense'' (1999), ''Treasure Planet'' (2002), ''The Village'' (2004), ''King Kong'' (2005), ''Batman Begins'' (2005), ''I Am Legend'' (2007), ''Blood Diamond'' (2006), ''The Dark Knight'' (2008), and ''The Hunger Games'' (2012), ''The Bourne Legacy'' (2012), ''The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'' (2013), and ''The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1''. He has frequently collaborated with director M. Night Shyamalan, having scored nine of his films since ''The Sixth Sense''. He is renowned for composing his work in a fairly short amount of time, as seen on his work with ''King Kong'' and ''The Hunger Games'', both of which took him around one month to finish. ==Early life and career== James Newton Howard was born in Los Angeles. He came from a musical family; his grandmother was the Pittsburgh Symphony's concertmaster and violinist during the 1930s and 40s. Howard began studying music as a child, taking classical piano lessons at the age of four.〔 He went on to attend the Thacher School in Ojai, California and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California with Reginald Stewart and Leon Fleischer.〔 He then attended the University of Southern California, studying at the School of Music as a piano performance major, but dropped out after 6 weeks because "He wanted to do other things than practicing the piano." After Howard left college, he joined a short-lived rock band, then worked for a couple of years as a session musician with artists including Diana Ross, Ringo Starr, and Harry Nilsson. In the early 70s, he described himself as being "dirt poor", until his big break in 1975 when his manager got him an audition with Elton John. He joined Elton's band and toured with them as keyboardist during the late 70s and early 80s. He was part of the band that played Central Park, New York, on September 13, 1980. True to his intentions of doing more than just playing the piano, Howard also arranged strings for several of Elton's songs during this period including the hits "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", as well as playing additional keyboards and synthesizers on several of Elton's studio albums, including ''Rock of the Westies'' (1975), ''Blue Moves'' (1976), ''21 at 33'' (1980), and ''The Fox'' (1981). In 1982, Howard was featured on ''Toto IV'' as the strings conductor and orchestrator for "I Won't Hold You Back", "Afraid of Love", and "Lovers in the Night". A year later, he released the live album ''James Newton Howard and Friends'', which featured Toto's David Paich (keyboards), Steve Porcaro (keyboards), Jeff Porcaro (drums), and Joe Porcaro (percussion). In 1983, Howard was co-producer, musician (keyboards), and orchestrator of Riccardo Cocciante's album ''Sincerità''. After briefly touring with Crosby, Stills and Nash, he took an opportunity brought to him by his manager to write a film score for a small-time movie. This career move would lead to his becoming a successful film music composer. During this early foray into film music, he did not entirely abandon his previous musical path and returned for a brief collaboration with Elton John on his Tour De Force of Australia in the fall of 1986. He conducted both his own and Paul Buckmaster's arrangements during the second half of the set, which focused on orchestrated performances of selected songs from the Elton John catalog. When delving into his family history, twenty-five years after the death of his father, Howard learned that his paternal family heritage was Jewish. He would later become a practicing Reconstructionist Jew.〔Commentary track of Defiance, 42:10〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Newton Howard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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