Rest in Peace, James Horner.
Yes, we have lost the most extraordinary and talented music composer of all time, but the greatest irony is that while I was assigned to work on this article, I was totally unknown about his untimely demise which took place just two days ago. His death was sudden and came as a shock. The excitement that I had when I first started to write about him has passed, now replaced with a deep void of sadness. This exceptional personality died at the age of 61 on June 22, 2015 in a plane crash. Horner's assistant wrote on her Facebook page, "We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent [who] died doing what he loved." (Wikipedia)
Yes indeed, Horner died doing what he loved doing. He started playing piano at a very young age of 5. He received his bachelor's degree in music from the University of Southern California. He completed his master's degree and earned his PhD form University of California, Los Angeles. This music composer and orchestrator has credit for numerous movies as well as orchestral work. His last musical project was the forthcoming film The 33 which is said to be released this very year. His most famous work includes the original musical score and original song “My Heart Will Go On” for the iconic Canadian movie director and producer, James Cameron , for the greatest movie of all time “Titanic” which earned him two Academy Awards for the Best Original Dramatic Score and the Best Original Song for the beautiful song sung by Celine Dion. According to Imdb.com, the salary that Horner received for the Titanic was 800,000$, that is 1.2$ per soundtrack album sold.
Besides Titanic, he has collaborated on large number of projects, producing many musical albums and almost all of them have their own success story. Horner has won numerous awards and composed music and songs for over 100 movies. He has won two academy awards (Oscars), two golden globe awards, three British Academy Film awards (BAFTA) including Grammy awards nominations. His major musical projects include films like Aliens and two of the greatest movies of the century Avatar (after Titanic), Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, A Beautiful Mind, The American Tail, Willow, Glory, The Mask of Zorro, Enemy at the Gates, Troy, Apocalypto, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Karate Kid (2010), The Amazing Spider Man and uncountable…
Horner was married to Sarah Horner and had two children. Following his death, A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard tweeted about Horner’s tragic death in his Twitter account. He wrote, “….My heart aches for his loved ones.” Howard was a close friend of Horner. They had collaborated in multiple projects. This musical genius will be remembered for his record breaking music and artistic works.
We’ll miss you James. May you rock the heaven, the way you rocked our world. Our heart will always go on for you, no matter where you are and we’ll never let go of your music.