Biography
Ira Hearshen is an American composer, arranger and orchestrator. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he received a Bachelor of Music degree from Wayne State University and later studied orchestration at the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles.
He began working in film and television music in the early 1980s, providing orchestrations and arrangements for composers including Randy Newman, Lalo Schifrin and others. His credits include the complete orchestral scores for the Rush Hour films (1998–2007), orchestrations on A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Cars 2 (2011) and Meet the Fockers (2004), and arrangements for the Oscar-winning song "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc. (2001). He has also composed concert works, two of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Music.
