Successes
Shore has written the music for such various major film productions as ''
The Silence of the Lambs'', ''
Mrs. Doubtfire'', ''
Philadelphia'', ''
Ed Wood'', ''
Se7en'', ''
Dogma'', ''
High Fidelity'', ''
Panic Room'', ''
The Departed'' and ''
The Aviator'', the last of which earned him a
Golden Globe. Since ''
The Brood'' in
1979, he has been a consistent collaborator with
David Cronenberg, scoring all his subsequent films except ''
The Dead Zone'' (
1983, scored by
Michael Kamen). His score for Cronenberg's ''
Naked Lunch'' is notable for his collaboration with famed
avant-garde jazz musician
Ornette Coleman, who praised Shore's work.
''The Lord of the Rings''
{{Listen
|filename=The Lord of the Rings-The Ring Goes South.ogg
|title=The Ring Goes South
|description=The famous theme of
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, composed by
Howard Shore.
|format=
Ogg}}
Since
2004, he has toured the world
conducting local
orchestras in the performance of his new
symphonic arrangement of his highly acclaimed ''
Lord of the Rings'' scores. The new work is entitled ''The Lord of the Rings: Symphony in Six Movements''. There are two movements for each of the movies, and an
intermission between the second and third (or first and second, in some cases) movements. The concert presentation of the symphony also includes projected still images relating the music being performed to scenes from the films. Recently, however, Shore has been busy with other projects, leaving other conductors including Markus Huber, Alexander Mickelthwaite, and
John Mauceri to lead the orchestras.
''King Kong''
Although Shore was originally commissioned to compose the soundtrack for ''
King Kong'' (indeed, he had already recorded most of the music), he was later replaced by
James Newton Howard due to "differing creative aspirations for the score" on his and the filmmakers' parts. This was a mutual agreement between him and Peter Jackson.
Despite this, Shore has a cameo near the end of ''King Kong'' as the
conductor of the
pit orchestra in the theatre.