Howard Shore: A Conversation with Paul Chihara
- Howard Shore: A Conversation with Paul Chihara
Introduction
Paul Chihara conducted this interview in November, 2016, as part of the Friday@1 Series in Scoring for Film and Multimedia at the Department of Music and Performing Arts at NYU Steinhardt.
Three-time Oscar winner Howard Shore has collaborated with David Cronenberg on fifteen of the director’s films: The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ, Spider, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis, and Maps to the Stars. His compositions for J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit stand as his most acclaimed to date, awarding him three Oscars, four Grammys, and two Golden Globes.
He was one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live and served as music director for the first five years. Other film works include Hugo, The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and After Hours for director Martin Scorsese; The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia for director Jonathan Demme; as well as Ed Wood, Se7en, Mrs. Doubtfire, Big, and the Academy Award–winning Spotlight.
His opera The Fly (2008) premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and at the Los Angeles Opera. Other concert works include the piano concerto Ruin and Memory for Lang Lang (2010), the cello concerto Mythic Gardens for Sophie Shao (2012), the song cycle A Palace Upon the Ruins for mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano (2014), and the guitar concerto The Forest for Miloš (2016).
He is an officer of the Order of Canada, an Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la France, and the recipient of Canada’s Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.
He lives in New York with his wife, Elizabeth Cotnoir.
The Conversation
Making an introduction for Howard Shore is a daunting task because his résumé is simply staggering! We’re all familiar with The Lord of the Rings, Ed Wood, and Silence of the Lambs—you know the breadth and diversity of Howard’s iconic scores. However, he also has a brilliant career as a concert composer. I don’t mean concert versions of his film scores. I’m referring to his recently completed guitar concerto—and many other wonderful works for major artists. I asked him, how does he do that because obviously he’s working on a film and a commission—and very often they come at the same time. I’ve always told my students [End Page 3] that if you want to write film music, then you should—and if you want to write concert music you should do that, as well. We should get to the place where we’re simply writing “music,” as Howard does. I’m really proud to present our guest today, Howard Shore.
Thank you. I think we can keep this rather informal. I have conducted classes in different places over the years in England, America, and Canada—Australia as well. We have some clips—I always think it’s good to listen to music as we’re talking about it because we can just theorize about things, but to play the clips stimulates a conversation.
The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 1991)
So, let’s take a look at this first piece from The Silence of the Lambs. [plays clip: Clarice in final basement scene with Gumb]
Okay, thank you. Great. Jonathan Demme directed this film. It was made in 1991. A couple things here, which you might appreciate, one is the use of silence. It’s very interesting, and it’s something to be aware of in spotting a film—how to use silence well. I was just talking to Paul about Toru Takemitsu, that one of the things I learned from him, especially looking at his score to Woman in the Dunes1—was how to use silence. In Kurosawa’s film Ran, the first hour is quite free of music except for quiet percussion. It’s an effective device for storytelling, building up tension and anticipation.
The Silence of the Lambs score grew...
