Considered the genius of movie soundtracks: Who is Hans Zimmer?

His full name is Hans Florian Zimmer, he was born on September 12, 1957 in Frankfurt, West Germany. Zimmer was raised as a Jew. His mother was a housewife with an interest in music, who survived the Second World War, and his father was an engineer. As a child he lived in Königstein-Falkenstein, where he took piano lessons for a short time and played at home, as he disliked the discipline of formal lessons.

Zimmer was educated at the Ecole D'Humanité, an international boarding school located in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He moved to London as a teenager, where he attended Hurtwood House, a private coeducational boarding school. Influenced by Ennio Morricone's soundtracks, Zimmer cited "Once Upon a Time in the West" as the song that inspired him to become a film composer. After losing his father when he was a child, Zimmer immersed himself in music and made it his best friend.

Beginning his career in the 1970s, Zimmer worked with "Buggles", a new wave group formed in London in 1977 with Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley. He was also briefly seen in the band's 1979 music video for "Video Killed the Radio Star". Later, he started working for "Krisma", a new Italian wave group founded by Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser in 1976. He was a prominent synthesizer on "Cathode Mamma", the band's third album.

In 1980, Zimmer also co-produced the British punk rock band "The Damned" and their single "History of the World, Part 1". In the same year, he also worked on the project "Helden" with drummer Warren Cann. Both Zimmer and Cann were invited to be part of the Spanish band Mecano for a live performance in Segovia, Spain, in 1984.

Also in the 1980s, he founded the London-based "Lillie Yard" recording studio with Stanley Myers, a prolific film composer who wrote the music for more than sixty films. The duo worked to combine traditional orchestral sound with electronic instruments. Among the films they worked on were Moonlight(1982), Success is Best Revenge(1984), Junk(1985) and My Beautiful Laundry(1985). Zimmer's first solo soundtrack was "Terminal Exposure" in 1987 for a film directed by Nico Mastorakis. That same year, Zimmer served as the music producer for "The Last Emperor" and won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. Later that year, he made the theme song for the television game show "Going for Gold", which he composed with Sandy McClelland, which became one of his most enduring works from his time in the UK.

A turning point in his career came with the movie "Rain Man" in 1988. Hollywood director Barry Levinson was looking for someone to compose the music for the film and was impressed by Zimmer's work and hired him to compose the film. Zimmer's composition was nominated for an Academy Award in 1989, while the film won four Academy Awards. Thus, Zimmer continued on its way to establish itself in this industry.

A year later, Zimmer was asked to compose the soundtrack for the movie "Driving Miss Daisy." The film's instrumentation consisted entirely of synthesizers and samplers played by Zimmer. The following year, Ridley Scott's film included the soundtrack to "Thelma & Louise" and Pete Haycock's trademark slide guitar performance on the "Thunderbird" theme from the film.

Zimmer wrote the theme of "True Romance" (1993), an adaptation film directed by Tony Scott. The catchy theme played on nine marimba instruments is done in stark contrast to the violence of the movie. Then he went to Africa to use African choirs and drums in the movie "The Power of One". Seeing this work, Walt Disney applied to Zimmer for the soundtrack of the 1994 movie "The Lion King". This would be Zimmer's first music for an animated film. Zimmer has won numerous awards for his work on the film, including an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, and two Grammys. The music was adapted into a Broadway musical version that won the 1998 Tony Award for Best Musical. As of 2012, the musical version of the film has grossed heavily, making it the highest-grossing Broadway show of all time.

Zimmer won a Grammy Award for the main theme in his music for Tony Scott's "Crimson Tide" (1995). His next project was "The Prince of Egypt"(1998), produced by DreamWorks Animation. Then, for Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" (1998), Zimmer said he recorded six and a half hours of music. The music is considered one of Zimmer's most important works and has been used in numerous trailers and video games.

In the 2000s, Zimmer also worked on three Ridley Scott-directed films, "Gladiator" (2000), "Black Hawk Down and Hannibal" (2001). He then took part in composing the soundtracks for "The Last Samurai" (2003), "Madagascar"(2005), "The Da Vinci Code"( 2006) and "The Simpsons Movie"(2007). He then continued with "Kung Fu Panda" (2008), "Angels & Demons" (2009) and "Sherlock Holmes" (2009), which he composed with John Powell.

Other works in the 2000s were the Spanish-language films "Casi Divas" and "The Burning Plain" (2009). He was also featured in the soundtrack of the television boxing series "The Contender" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", his first video game project with Lorne Balfe. He also collaborated with composers Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu to compose the soundtrack for the video game "Crysis 2".

In October 2000, Zimmer performed live for the first time with an orchestra and choir at the Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

In early 2003, producer Jerry Bruckheimer turned to Zimmer for "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." However, due to some of his commitments, someone else took over the task of composing and supervising the music. Zimmer worked as a composer for the next three films in the series, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (2006), "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (2007) and "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" (2011).

He is also known for the soundtracks of the films "Batman Begins" (2005), directed by Christopher Nolan, and "The Dark Knight" (2008), composed with James Newton Howard. For the soundtrack of The Dark Knight, he decided to represent the character of the Joker with a single note played by his colleague Martin Tillman on the cello. The soundtracks for these films were disqualified from receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score. Zimmer was able to reverse his decision not to be nominated for the "Dark Knight" through his pleas.

For the 2009 film "Sherlock Holmes" and the 2011 sequel "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows", Zimmer and director Guy Ritchie brought together original Roma music and Roman virtuoso musicians. The following year, Zimmer used electronic manipulation of the song "Non, je ne desirete rien" for the movie "Inception" (2010), and it became a popular feature in movie trailers.

In 2012, Zimmer composed and produced the music for the 84th Academy Awards with Pharrell Williams. He also composed a new version of the theme music for the ABC World News tv news program. He also composed the music for "The Dark Knight Rises", the final episode of Christopher Nolan's sequel.

Zimmer composed the music for the television series "The Bible"(2013) with Lorne Balfe and Lisa Gerrard. The following year, he also composed the soundtrack for "12 Years a Slave", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zimmer also worked on the soundtrack of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014) with "The Magnificent Six", consisting of Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr, Michael Einziger, Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro. He also composed the music for "Interstellar" (2014), directed by Christopher Nolan. It earned it another Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. In 2016, he collaborated with Junkie XL to compose the soundtrack for the movie "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice".

Zimmer composed the main theme of the BBC nature documentary "Planet Earth II" (2016) presented by David Attenborough. He also composed the music for the BBC nature documentary "Blue Planet II" (2017) with Jacob Shea and David Fleming, presented by David Attenborough. That same year, he composed the main theme of the Netflix production "The Crown" (2016) and released an online course that teaches the fundamentals of soundtracks.

Later, he worked on the soundtrack of Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk"(2017) and "Blade Runner 2049" directed by Denis Villeneuve. In 2018, he composed the music for the new FIFA Anthem, "Living Football", in reference to FIFA's new slogan. Also that year, he remastered the UEFA Champions League Anthem with rapper Vince Staples for the video game FIFA 19 and also appeared in the game's promotional trailer. Zimmer also composed the music for "Dark Phoenix" directed by Simon Kinberg.

In 2018, it was announced that Zimmer would be the composer of "Wonder Woman 1984" and voice the "Dune" directed by Denis Villeneuve in March 2019. That same year, Zimmer collaborated to create the sounds for BMW's concept vehicle, the Vision M Next. The next year, he composed the music for the movie "Hillbilly Elegy".

On January 6, 2020, he took over the composition of the James Bond movie "No Time to Die". Later that year, an anthem for season 25 of Major League Soccer was released, composed by Zimmer. He also composed the soundtrack for the movie "Dune", which won him his second Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2022, he collaborated with Camila Cabello on the song "Take Me Back Home" for the documentary series "Frozen Planet II".

Private life

Zimmer's first wife was model Vicki Carolin, and he has a daughter with her. The couple decided to divorce in 1992. Later, Zimmer married Suzanne Zimmer, and the couple have three children. Zimmer filed for divorce from his wife on April 3, 2020.

In 1996, he received the Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award from the BMI Film Music Awards. In 2003, he won the Career Achievement Award "for excellence in soundtrack composition" from the National Board of Review. Also that same year, he won the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composition and the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

In December 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2016, he became one of the first winners of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. Zimmer received the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award in Vienna in 2018. In October 2018, Zimmer was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The following year, Zimmer was recognized as a Disney Legend.