James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American composer, conductor, and music producer. He has scored more than 100 films and has received a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine Academy Award nominations. Howard began studying music at a young age and later attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, before majoring in piano performance at the University of Southern California. After leaving college, he performed as a keyboardist with Elton John and Toto during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He transitioned to film scoring in the mid-1980s. In 1990, he gained widespread recognition for scoring the romantic comedy "Pretty Woman". The following year, he earned his first Academy Award nomination for his score for Barbra Streisand's drama "The Prince of Tides". Throughout the 1990s, Howard composed music for a wide range of genres. He was nominated for Best Original Score for "The Fugitive" (1993) and "My Best Friend's Wedding" (1997). Other notable projects from this period include "Wyatt Earp" (1994), "Primal Fear" (1996), and a series of collaborations with director M. Night Shyamalan on films such as "The Sixth Sense" (1999), "Unbreakable" (2000), "Signs" (2002), and "The Village" (2004). His work on "One Fine Day" (1996) and "Junior" (1994) also earned nominations for Best Original Song. Howard scored both smaller character-driven films such as "Five Corners" (1988), "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), and "American Heart" (1993), as well as major studio releases including "Space Jam" (1996), "Dante's Peak" (1997), "Dinosaur" (2000), and "Collateral" (2004). For "Dante's Peak", he composed the main theme, while the full score was created by John Frizzell. In addition to film, he contributed music to television, earning an Emmy nomination in 1995 for his theme for the series "ER". His work on "The Village", featuring violin solos by Hilary Hahn, brought another Academy Award nomination. He later co-composed the score for "Batman Begins" (2005) with Hans Zimmer. In October 2005, it was announced that Howard would replace Howard Shore as the composer for "King Kong", with the final score earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score. Howard received further Academy Award nominations for "Michael Clayton" (2007) and "Defiance" (2008). He went on to compose scores for major productions including "I Am Legend", "The Dark Knight" (co-written with Hans Zimmer), all of "The Hunger Games" films, and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". In 2021, he received another Academy Award nomination for his score for "News of the World".