♪ >> Valerie: Hello, welcome to Canada Files .

I am Valerie Pringle.

Howard Shore is an Oscar and Grammy award-winning composer and conductor.

He was a musician in the band Lighthouse .

He was the first Musical Director of Saturday Night Live .

But he is best known for his film scores of which there are more than 80 - including the Lord of the Rings trilogy .

It has been a remarkable musical career.

Howard Shore, hello!

>> Howard Shore: Hello.

>> Could we start at the beginning?

There's such a lovely arc to your career that I love the story of you as a kid taking an aptitude test.

And your score in music was so high, that they gave you an instrument!

>> Yes, well when I was a youngster, I sang in the choir at school when I was at 8.

And this is going back to the early 50's around '54, the Seashore Test was a national test given to all the grade school kids for music aptitude and it tested rhythm and pitch.

They were looking for children who might show music ability and offer them instruments.

And I was interested in jazz and so the clarinet was my instrument of choice.

>> Man!

Did they ever find the right person with musical aptitude they should still be doing that.

What a great thing for the government to being doing.

>> Yes, it was called the Seashore Test .

It was a computer-generated test for all grade school.

The clarinet took me to a private teacher who's name was Maurice Weinsweig and he gave me lessons every week and Maurice thought it would be a good idea to also have me learn counterpoint and harmony.

>> As a kid!

>> I was about 9 and 10 years-old.

>> And you got it though, which is remarkable.

>> And he started me writing with a pencil and a pen.

And I was doing counterpoint and harmony exercises every week.

>> Yes, you are still doing it 70 years later!

>> Yes, still doing the same thing.

So, that led me to playing the clarinet, which led me to the saxophone, and my love of jazz.

And then I played in a lot of small groups, jazz groups in Toronto and The Village and we started playing around a little bit.

And then it takes me into Berklee.

>> So, you studied music at Berklee and learned all kinds of things like composition and choral music.

You had a great curiosity about music.

You we're a total music nerd, basically... >> Yeah, I had some good teachers and then that experience in school led me to Lighthouse .

>> Which was the Canadian kind of fusion band known as, I guess, the Canadian Chicago.

>> Right, like Lighthouse was a Canadian band, exactly.

And there was a horn section, and a string quartet, Electronic strings.

and I did 8 albums with Lighthouse between '69 and '72.

>> So Lighthouse was a great experience.

>> It was - it took me around the world traveling and I played one thousand one-nighters in 4 years.

We used to play like 250 gigs a year.

It taught me about collaborating, and it taught me about playing in a band, and doing a lot of arrangements.

We played with orchestras.

We wrote a ballet that was filmed at CBC.

While I was in Lighthouse , I was also working with Lorne Michaels and we were doing radio and television shows.

>> Ok, just back to Lighthouse for a second.

I was told, Duke Ellington introduced you?

>> Right, at The Rock Pile.

>> Must've been your hero of jazz, Duke Ellington!

>> He did .

He was playing in Toronto, and our manager convinced him - he was on his way to the airport - convinced him to stop at the Rock Pile at The Masonic Temple on Davenport, to introduce this 'new rock band sensation' kind of thing.

So he did it, he just stopped in.

>> You must of been gobsmacked just to meet him.

>> Of course, it was fantastic.

>> And also with Lighthouse, and all those years of touring, you open-closed for Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Elton John opened for you.

Did you think he was good?

>> I thought Elton John was incredible.

and we had some groups open for us that were amazing like John McLaughlin.

They were all just being discovered, so it was an amazing time.

>> So back to Lorne Michaels, who was your camp friend.

>> I met Lorne in Haliburton at a camp called Timberlane.

And he was also a neighbourhood kid that I knew from around the area that I lived in, in Toronto.

We did plays at camp, we did a lot of musicals, we did sketches, we did a lot of improv, it was kind of like an early version of Saturday Night Live.

We went on to do radio and television at CBC once camp was finished.

>> And you were the Musical Director of Saturday Night Live, the first one and it was 5 years of your life doing those crazy shows, live, out of New York.

>> Howard: Yes.

>> Saturday Night!

>> Yes.

Well I had a lot of experience of performing.

I mean I had been on the road for years, I did all these concerts with Lighthouse and was travelling around playing rock festivals in England and we toured in Japan.

We were all over the States and Canada.

So I got to see a lot of performance and absorb that.

Doing a live show on television, Saturday Night Live, felt pretty natural at the time.

>> Yeah, it must have been crazy.

>> Well, I hand-picked the musicians from my record collection.

I didn't know that New York - I knew the Jazz scene all from my record collections.

So, I just went through the back of my records and called people up that I liked from the recordings.

>> And working with Lorne?

What was that relationship and operation?

>> It's been terrific.

We've been friends for years.

We're very dear, close friends like brothers.

>> And you came up with the name The Blues Brothers for Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

>> Well, I did, apparently.

It was - we did a warm up for television.

You'd do a warm up, the house band would do a warm up and then Dan Aykroyd, who played some blues harp, wanted to join in the warm up and we were playing a lot of blues and R&B and so Danny fit right in.

Then John, John Belushi, saw that and he wanted to be part of it.

So he could do a few songs with us in the warm up.

I would introduce them as those brothers in blues.

The Blues Brothers , it just came out one night.

>> Sweet, sweet line.

(laughs) But is it a blur that time to you because it was so intense?

>> No, no.

It was very distinct.

I have a great recollection of all of it.

It seems like a long time ago and I guess it was, I mean it was... - The show years that I did were '75 to '80 and -- but it was a precious time in my life.

>> Yes, sweet, sweet memories.

And then, you started doing more compositions and film scores.

And that began around that time?

>> The years that I did the show, the summer, would always be a hiatus in television.

I started to work in the summer with David Cronenberg.

I approached him.

I knew his movies.

But I didn't know if he would take me on as a composer.

He had never worked with a composer.

And I managed to talk to him and speak to him and say -- I'd only done one film before that, before The Brood .

And in the summer I worked with David and did films like The Brood , Scanners and Videodrone while I was still working on Saturday Night Live.

>> What sort of skill set then did you start to tap into to do film scores?

>> Well, it was kind of using everything I had learned and wanted to try in the studio.

I was interested in the technology and I wanted to be in the recording studio.

And I thought film, film music in particular, was a good way to connect to the recording studio, connect to other musicians, and be able to write - a variety of different things and experiment with things that I was interested in.

Scores like Scanners andVideodrone were done in '79 and '80, were very experimental but that's where I was kind of heading.

I wanted to try things and I thought film was a way to use the technology.

>> But you also have to help tell the story, not get in the way, enhance the characters.

>> Right.

That kind of came later.

In the early films I did, especially with David Cronenberg, we worked a lot in the subtext of the story.

We didn't really try to indicate to the audience... >> Something bad is going to happen.

There are a lot of scary movies that David Cronenberg did.

>> We never really took that route.

We kind of tried different ways of using music in film.

And I found that very interesting, David was very open to experiment, and we've done 16 films together.

I don't think any of them repeat they always tried something new -- >> Then you started working with different directors, Martin Scorcese... >> Well in 1986, I did 3 films.

After Hours with Martin Scorcese, Penny Marshall's Big, and David Cronenberg's The Fly.

They we're all successful films.

>> And so different!

>> And so different!

And so that kind of opened the doors to Hollywood and to a lot of other offers.

That started making people interested in my work.

And I was thrilled then, and so I thought oh well I'll try all - I did, that was a comedy, kind of an independent, kind of mystery, After Hours and a sci-fi, thriller.

It was like a perfect beginning for film music.

>> Well, and then, Silence of the Lambs - and how did you figure out that music?

>> Yes, Silence of the Lambs was a Jonathan Demme movie with Jodie Foster and that was in 1990.

By the time I did Silence of the Lambs, I had been working in film for about 10 years and maybe even a little over 10 years.

So I had some experience.

I wrote it for orchestra.

It's written for the Munich Symphony.

And it felt pretty natural.

I like to read, I studied the book, I got into the subtext, the characters, the underlining story.

Jonathan kind of moved me to understand Clarice's character much better and to highlight what she was -- >> Rather than Hannibal.

>> Well, yeah exactly.

Film music is about point of view .

So with the scenes with Clarice the music takes her point of view, it's empathetic.

Which was unusual for that kind of film generally it would be the bigger character, the Hannibal character, as you mentioned.

would take the focus of the music.

But we didn't do that.

And it created something unique in that film.

>> And so many of them I'm looking at - M Butterfly, Philadelphia, Seven, Mrs. Doubtfire.

>> Yes, great film.

Again, I was being offered a lot of different projects and they seemed exciting at the time.

Mrs. Doubtfire was a fantastic film and Robin Williams' performance was remarkable.

And my experience in working in comedy kind of made me.. -Chris Columbus directed it- it made me feel I might have been right for that.

>> Were you involved ever on set?

Did you just get involved as you we're sent pictures?

Or, what stage did you start figuring out how things should sound?

>> I don't like to go to the set too often.

I didn't like the look behind the curtain.

It keeps the magic alive as long as I could.

That's why I'd also studied the novels and the scripts that were written.

I like to absorb the material without the visual for a quite a while just to take in the ideas and work with the ideas, first.

But when I saw the film, it had so much rhythm to it.

Robin Williams did so much improvisation that I had to actually follow with the orchestra.

It was challenge there, yeah.

>> Does it bother you, that people forget music for movies?

They leave the theatre and they go, what did you write, what does it sound like?

And you think, 'I worked for years on those things.'

>> Well, film is a total experience.

You want to balance all the different parts of the film: The cinematography, the editing, the acting, the music, costumes, production design, direction.

They should all balance.

And then just transport the viewer to the world, whatever the world is.

Whether it's Silence of the Lambs, or Fellowship of the Ring , it takes you to that world and you just want to live in that world.

That's a successful film!

>> What stands out for you?

Anything pre Lord of the Rings , - which is where were going - Pre Lord of the Rings, anything that makes you think 'that was perfect, that was lovely I nailed it?'

>> I never think I nailed it...no.

It's hard to go back and watch some of the old films and seeing the choices that you make.

I think that's quite common with people making films.

But, when I do catch something, I'm okay.

I feel like some projects felt more natural.

The music I'm writing, is only coming from my heart.

If I'm feeling something -- music is an emotional language.

I have to feel something in order to write it.

If I do that , if I get that... if the emotion is right, then I can do the composition.

And then when I watch it later, as we're talking about, it feels natural.

Something like Silence of the Lambs, feels natural to me now if I watch it, of course.

>> Your greatest work was the Lord of the Rings trilogy- the Hobbit , was Oscar-winning.

Probably one of the best musical scores ever , is how it's described.

Are you just enormously proud of that?

>> Well, yes I am!

Of course!

It's really - the Lord of the Rings was kind of a culmination of everything I've learned and knew about theatre, film, novels, poetry, music.

It was everything.

I had a great subject to work with.

I had a great connection to Tolkien through nature, and how I live.

It was like a gift really.

It came to me - I was in my late 50's.

I had the energy and everything.

I could orchestrate, I could conduct, I could produce, I could do all those things and I kept it very close, didn't let a lot of people in, tried to do as much as I could from one hand.

>> And a great connection with Peter Jackson even though you were here in New York and he was in New Zealand.

>> He was 9000 miles away and I was able to communicate with him through traveling there, through the phone, through an early version of the internet, I was able to work with him.

It was successful and we connected.

>> You ended up writing a song with Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox Into the West, which won an Oscar.

Annie Lennox is such a pistol, that must of been a blast.

>> Isn't she amazing?

It was a joy to work with her.

I was looking for the end of Return of the King and I thought Annie -she was so stately- she represented Galadrial so well to me.

I wrote it in that Galadrial type of posture that Annie has, that stature.

So it was wonderful to be able work with her.

She was great at the Oscars too, I thought she sang it so beautifully.

>> How cool to win 3 Oscars and 4 Grammy's.

>> Yes, well, the accolades have been amazing.

And I wasn't really too conscious of the whole system.

>> Valerie: You were just working away for 4 years.

>> I was just working away.

Yeah, just this guy in a room with his pen and his pencil.

>> But their response was... you must have known that this is beautiful.

>> We did for a while, you know.

There were some difficult years there too.

9/11 was during Fellowship of the Ring and it was some hard times making those films.

They offered so much to me both emotionally and musically, what I could do, what I could accomplish, the choirs, the voice choir that I could work with.

It was really fantastic to create that piece and then to receive that type of accolade for it, was unbelievable.

>> You talk about being inspired by nature.

>> Yeah.

>> Just generally, in your work, but certainly for that line 'Everything that's green and good'.

>> Yes, exactly.

I live in a forest, in an Oakwood and I found that my connection to Tolkien, was through nature.

And even going back to Haliburton, in how I grew up every summer was Northern Ontario canoe trips and camping.

And so I had a strong connection, and I think, that's helped me interpret Tolkien's work.

>> So you're still working away, as you have since you were a kid.

Learning to scratch notes on a paper, disciplined.

>> I learned to write counterpoint and harmony that way.

All the scores, the Ring scores I did that way.

It's -- I don't know, maybe 12 hours of music.

But, it didn't feel like a day, unless notes were going down on paper.

I'm very disciplined, I'm very organized, and I would write 50 bars of music a day.

It totals up, it just adds up.

And before you know it, you have your 12 hours.

>> You know it's astonishing, what's in that brain of yours ?

>> Well, it's just a day-to-day process.

I don't think so much ahead.

When I would write each day, I would just write one bar at a time.

You could only write one bar at a time.

I would, just linearly, just write my way through the project.

>> You continue with concertos, you've written opera...

I mean, just - it's a part of who you are.

>> I like to try different things.

Like, the opera, was an for me an expirement, I wanted to try it.

>> That was The Fly .

>> The Fly !

It was - It premiered at the Châtelet in Paris, which was fantastic to be in Paris, and to have an opera premiere.

Then it went to Los Angeles and played at LA Opera.

The concertos and the chamber pieces are just part of my work.

They're just things, some of them, I've been asked to write.

The piano concerto was written for [pianist] Lang Lang, the recent guitar concerto for Milos, an incredible artist.

And so when they come to you and ask you to write something for them, you just do it.

Because music is just a part of my life.

It's allowed me to be creative, it's a very emotional part of my world.

Being able to write music for a great artist, and work with a great soloist, it's like breathing great air.

>> Well it's been quite a life.

>> Thank you.

>> That aptitude test sure was right!

>> He must have some aptitude for music.

It seemed okay.

>> Wow - What a brilliant path it's set you on.

Did it, when you took that test, did you go, 'yeah, that's right!'

or would you have been a musician anyway?

>> Well that's a good question, I don't really know.

I mean I was a just a youngster.

I was probably just 8 years-old and you're filling up a carbon computer form.

You know, how many notes in this sequence, kind of thing.

But, something led me to music and I wasn't great at a lot of other things.

Other people say that as well.

Music just takes you over and away you go.

>> We ask all our guests at the end of this show, 'what being Canadian means to them?'

>> Well, to me, it is connecting with nature.

Growing up in Canada, I spent all those summers in Haliburton, and then I spent summers in Muskoka.

Being Canadian to me, always felt like a part of nature.

When I come back to Canada, I always feel grounded.

Where I live in New York, is as probably as close to Muskoka as you can find in Upstate New York.

>> Well it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you and thank you so much.

>> Thank you, I really enjoyed it.

>> We'll be back next week with another edition of Canada Files.

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