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The Remains of James Horner's Plane, which started a small brush fire upon impact.
Horner, while recording Braveheart's Score
One of the more famous Star Trek tracks he produced - "Stealing the Enterprise" - Star Trek: The Search for SpockThe crash was first reported by Mike Lindbery, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Service where he stated that there was one fatality. While the cause of the crash is unknown at this time, his death has been confirmed by his assistant, Sylvia Patrycja in a Facebook post, "A great tragedy has struck my family today, and I will not be around for a while. I would like some privacy and time to heal. We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart, and unbelievable talent. He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road. Love Sylvia." He is survived by his wife, Sarah Horner and two daughters.
Born in Los Angeles, August 1953 to Oscar winning set designer Harry Horner Joan Ruth, James Horner's interest in music began, like many other musical geniuses at an early age. When he was five, he began playing the piano. He spent much of his youth at the Royal College of Music in London. After returning to the United States, he studied at the University of California - Los Angeles, where he received his doctorate.
His foray into music production when he was working on scoring for the American Film Institute. Teaching a course in Music Theory at UCLA is what piqued his interest in scoring. After scoring several B-list movies, his notoriety began to increase in Hollywood and his ascension was about to begin.
Many believe James Horner's career took off with his score of the classic, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, where the film's writer and director Nick Meyer brought him on as the film's composer. Mr. Meyer famously wrote in his memoir, The View From the Bridge how he couldn't afford to bring back Jerry Goldsmith, the composer for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so he hired James Horner. When it came time to hire a composer for Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, he couldn't afford Mr. Horner, due to his massive increase popularity by that time.
When discussing the process of scoring Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Horner stated how Harve Benett, who also passed away earlier this year, would have been more comfortable reusing content from the the previous movie, but Horner and Meyer chose to create something unique, developing a new theme for the movie, which further separated Wrath of Khan and future films from The Motion Picture. One of Horner's favorite moments from the Wrath of Khan was the Enterprise departing Drydock, where he described the whole scene as "visually perfect". He believed that you shouldn't be aware of the music. He was proud of the "marriage between the visuals and the music working together to make that moment so fantastic".
Over the past thirty years, he scored 156 unique works, including Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek: The Search for Spock, Avatar, Braveheart, Troy, Apollo 13, and Patriot Games. Though, many consider his Oscar and Golden Globe award winning Titanic soundtrack was perhaps his greatest work.
This past December, David Hocquet interviewed with Mr. Horner , where he explained some of the challenges he faced as a composer. When talking about the competition for doing movies surrounding pure, unadulterated action, he stated, "I'll do a good score but it's not something that I'll really love doing. It's too hard now, there are so many executives, it's too difficult."
Regardless of the challenges he faced, his work has spanned genres and generations, touching millions of moviegoers. He will be missed.
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WRITTEN BY CEHUS - chris.hudson@ufplanets.com
EDITED BY LYNXMUKKA - stefano.elia@ufplanets.com
