Canadian composer Howard Shore has written musical scores for some 60 films and has the Oscars to prove it. He talks with Martin Steinberg about his life of writing soundtracks

　　Having written a symphony, Howard Shore -- the prolific composer whose music spans ``Middle-Earth'' to the Hollywood of Howard Hughes -- is now looking to opera.

　　He's working on an opera version of David Cronenberg's horror film ``The Fly'' for a 2007 premiere by the Los Angeles Opera, a collaboration with Cronenberg and librettist David Henry Wong of ``M. Butterfly'' fame. Shore is also working on ``Lord of the Rings'' director Peter Jackson's new movie, ``King Kong.'' Meantime, the 58-year-old Canadian-born composer has been traveling the world, conducting his mammoth ``Lord of the Rings Symphony'' to sell-out audiences and is piling up awards. In February, he won two Grammys for ``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.'' It won best soundtrack and best movie song -- ``Into the West,'' co-written by Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh. Last year, he won two Academy Awards for those works having previously won an Oscar for ``The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.'' His music for ``The Aviator'' won a Golden Globe in January. It was ineligible for an Oscar because the soundtrack contained too much other music. Over the years, he made his mark as first music director for ``Saturday Night Live'' (working with friend Lorne Michaels); helped Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi put together the ``Blues Brothers'' and has scored most of Cronenberg's films. Shore agreed to talk about his projects and the music for some 60 films. Q: Where have you been recently? HS: Conducting. Seville and then the Kremlin in Moscow, then back to New York and next I did three concerts in Tokyo. Q: You conducted all these concerts? HS: Yeah. In London, at Albert Hall, I did two concerts, Seattle, Pittsburgh, the Atlanta Symphony, in the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony, then the Montreal Symphony. Q: And this is conducting ``The Lord of the Rings Symphony?'' HS: It's ``The Lord of the Rings Symphony,'' which is a two-hour-and-five-minute concert piece in six movements for symphony orchestra and chorus and children's chorus, and soloists. It requires actually 225 to perform the piece. Q: That's huge. HS: Well ... yes. The numbers do go up kind of quickly. Q: How much conducting had you done previously? HS: I've actually been conducting since I was 19, 20. A lot of rehearsal conducting, a lot of recording conducting. And I've done concerts over the years, but nothing this extensively. It's quite good physically. I'm probably in better physical shape than I've been in years, just from being on the podium. Q: And all that traveling. HS: Well the traveling just wears you out. I don't think that helps anything physically. But being with those different orchestras in different parts of the world and hearing the piece played by different orchestras is really fascinating. The Russian kids would sing Tolkien's different languages with a Russian accent, the Flemish kids with Flemish, the Japanese kids would have their own version and the choirs would also have their own different ways of performing the piece. Q: Do you think this will help classical music, that it will draw young audiences to concert halls? HS: I see kids with their grandparents coming to the concert. I see teenagers on dates coming to the concerts and sometimes for the first time ever, to hear their symphony. In Pittsburgh, I'd asked some of the audience afterwards if they'd ever been to Heinz Hall to hear the Pittsburgh Symphony. They said they hadn't until this time. And I said, ``Are you interested in hearing more symphony concerts?'' and they said, ``Yes, definitely.'' So I think it's really woken up a generation of listeners and I think that's probably the power of movies, and the excitement of that movie, and the books. Q: Your style seems eclectic. For instance ``The Aviator'' CD starts out in baroque style. HS: ``The Aviator'' music was, you know, the period that film (with sound) starts. In silent films it was the era of live orchestras playing in theaters and quite often they would play classical music. A lot of the writing at the beginning was canons and fugues. Basic techniques of classical music and I was trying to show this relationship. Also the canons that I wrote and the fugues, they relate well to Hughes' obsessions. The canon particularly works well for the obsessive part of his mind and the repetition of the pieces being played. ~Q: A lot of people who go to movies don't even hear the music, even if their moods are influenced by it. What do you think about that? HS: I think they do. What you're trying to do is make a total work. A movie like ``Lord of the Rings'' is successful because all the parts of it are well done. Movies are good when the film itself is greater than all the parts. That's what you're trying to do, to create this piece that when you watch it, you're transported, you're absorbed. You're not thinking what's really happening to you, as if you just moved to ``Middle-Earth'' or moved to the world of ``The Aviator,'' of California in the '30s, and you live there for a few hours. Q: What do you think of the future of classical music? HS: Oh boy, that's a big question. I think the nurturing of new works is important. That brings the audience into the future, if we keep on nurturing new composers and playing new works, that seems to me that it is the future. Still respecting the tradition of the past, but creating new works seems essential. (The Associated Press) Composer Howard Shore, best known for his film scores, in the Petrossian Cafe in New York. Shore, who has been traveling the world conducting his mammoth ``Lord of the Rings Symphony'' to sell-out audiences, is now working on an opera version of the horror film, ``The Fly.'' -- AP