Hans Zimmer was born in 1957, and is originally from Germany. He is a musician who has created music for more than 100 films. Some of the examples of these films are Hollywood movies, like Gladiator, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and Sherlock Holmes.
Zimmer initially embarked on a career in music in the United Kingdom. He moved to the United States later on. He has been designated as the head of the film music department of Dream Works Studios.
Zimmer formed a company of his own called Remote Control Productions. The music Zimmer creates is known for having electronic musical sounds and classic orchestral tunes. When he was a teen, Zimmer lived in London. While he was starting out in his career as a musician, he played the keyboards and the synthesizers.
A milestone in Zimmer’s career occurred in 1988, during the filming of the Hollywood movie, “The Rain Man.” The director of the movie, Barry Levinson, was on the lookout for a musician to provide a musical score to the film. Levinson’s wife was able to listen to the soundtrack CD of the anti-Apartheid drama, “A World Apart.” Zimmer created the music for the said soundtrack. Levinson liked the aforementioned work of Zimmer’s. So, the former hired Zimmer to provide the musical score for “The Rain Man.”
Zimmer went to Africa to utilize African choirs and drums in recording the musical score for the 1992 movie, “The Power of One.” Upon seeing the good quality for the said work of Zimmer’s, Disney Animation Studios offered the German native to make a musical composition for the score of the Disney animated movie, “The Lion King.”
Among the musical score projects Zimmer has completed for Hollywood films in the 2000’s are Black Hawk Down, The Last Samurai, and the movie version of “The Simpsons.”
Zimmer is famously known for his projects for the musical scores of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins,” and “The Dark Knight.” Zimmer worked with James Newton Howard in creating the musical score for the latter film.
During a speech in the 1999 Berlin Film Festival, Zimmer shares that he is Jewish. While giving the speech, Zimmer further shares that his mother ran away to England in 1939.
Awards
Zimmer got multiple awards for his musical score work on “The Lion King.” These awards are an academy award for best music (original score), a Golden Globe award, and two Grammy awards. In 1997, the musical score of The Lion King was made into a Broadway musical. This work received a Tony award for Best Musical in 1998.
Other iconic works
- “Interstellar” Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film of the same name is known for a high decibel. However, it’s sad that people only notice that uninteresting fact about Zimmer’s musical work for the soundtrack. Like the movie for which the soundtrack has been created is based on, the latter is full of creative ideas. Zimmer integrates various concepts into the film’s soundtrack, not only ideas that evoke emotions.
- “Inception” Soundtrack
Zimmer injects bold and electronic sounds into the music of the soundtrack of this film. Zimmer is known to have infused concepts of Edith Piaf, Ennio Morricone, and The Smiths. The “Inception” soundtrack is another project that Zimmer completed together with director, Christopher Nolan.
- “Pirates of the Caribbean” Soundtrack
Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt wrote the musical score for the initial version of the film series. The creation of such a musical score begins with the “He’s a Pirate” story concept. Zimmer was the person who hired Badelt to write the musical score for the first movie in the said franchise series from Disney. It’s popularly known that Zimmer created certain melodies included in the film’s soundtrack, and supervised the work that Badelt did.
Zimmer’s music is tailored to the tastes and musical styles of adults and kids alike from countries in many parts of the world.
