Biography
James Newton Howard is an American composer who has scored more than one hundred films. Born in Los Angeles in 1951, he began piano studies at the age of four and later trained at the Music Academy of the West and the University of Southern California. He worked as a session musician and arranger before joining Elton John's band in 1975, remaining until 1982.
Howard began composing for film in 1985. His credits include Pretty Woman (1990), The Fugitive (1993), The Sixth Sense (1999), Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008, with Hans Zimmer). He has maintained a long collaboration with director Francis Lawrence, scoring all five films in the Hunger Games series, including The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023). He has received eight Academy Award nominations, a Grammy Award and an Emmy Award.
