Hans Zimmer

Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and moved to London as a teenager, where he went to Hurtwood House School. While he lived in London, Zimmer wrote advertising jingles for Air-Edel Associates. Zimmer began his musical career playing keyboards and synthesizers. In 1980, Zimmer worked with Buggles, a New Wave band formed in 1977 with Trevor Horn, Geoff Downs, and Bruce Woolley. Zimmer can be briefly seen in the Buggles music video for Video Killed the Radio Star (1979). After working with Buggles, he started to work for the Italian group Krisma, a New Wave band formed in 1976 with Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser. He was a featured synthesizer for Krisma’s third album, Cathode Mamma. He has also worked with the band Helden (with Warren Cann from Ultravox).

In the 1980s, Zimmer partnered with film composer Stanley Myers, a prolific film composer who composed scores for over sixty films. Zimmer and Myers co-founded the London-based Lillie Yard recording studio. Together, Myers and Zimmer worked on fusing the traditional orchestral sound with state-of-the-art electronics. Some of their first movies with this new sound include Moonlighting (1982), Success is the Best Revenge (1984), Insignificance (1985), and My Beautiful Launderette (1985). His first solo score was for the low budget feature "Terminal Exposure" for director Nico Mastorakis, where Zimmer also composed all songs. In 1986 and again in 2005, Hans Zimmer joined David Byrne, a Scottish-American musician and artist, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, a Japanese musician, composer, producer, and actor, on their Oscar-winning score for The Last Emperor (1988).

Soon after The Last Emperor, Hans Zimmer began working on his own solo projects. During his solo career years, Zimmer experimented and combined the use of old and new musical technologies. His first solo work for composing a score was for Chris Menges’s film A World Apart (1988). However, Zimmer’s turning point in his career came later in that year when he was asked to compose a score for Barry Levinson’s film Rain Man (1988). In the score, Zimmer uses synthesizers (mostly a Fairlight CMI) mixed with steel drums. In a reflection on his greatest scores, Zimmer said that Rain Man was a road movie, so the music is full of guitars strings. Zimmer did not want the music to be bigger than the characters, so he kept the music contained and not overbearing. Since the Raymond character saw the world as different from everyone else, Zimmer wanted to compose his own music for a world that does not exist, like in Raymond’s mind. Zimmer’s score was nominated for an Academy Award for Rain Man in 1989.

In 1994, Zimmer won his biggest commercial hit for Disney’s The Lion King (1994). Zimmer wanted to go to South Africa himself to record the soundtrack for The Lion King but could not because he had a police record in South Africa for doing 'subversive' movies. Zimmer used African choirs, which was inspired by his previous film score for The Power of One (1992), which he used African choirs and drums. The Lion King soundtrack won numerous awards, including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and two Grammys. His soundtrack was then adapted for the Broadway Musical, which won the Tony for Best Musical in 1998.

film scores written by Hans Zimmer

-Crimson Tide (1995) Won a Germany Grammy Award
-The Thin Red Line (1998) Satellite Award
-The Prince of Egypt (1998)
-Gladiator (2000) Golden Globe Award
-Hannibal (2001)
-The Last Samurai (2003) Satellite Award
-King Arthur (2004)
-Batman Begins (2005)
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
-The Da Vinci Code (2006)
-The Dark Knight (2008) Grammy
-The Contender
-Blood+.(Anime series - 2005)
-Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron 2003(nominated for best song)