Sadly, composer James Horner died Monday in a plane crash. Horner, a trained pilot, was alone in his two-seater single-engine S312 Tucano when it crashed north of Santa Barbara about 9:30 Monday morning.
Horner was one of the most popular film composers of the last 30 years, scoring more than 100 films in all. His work on the Titanic soundtrack earned him two Oscars. The Celine Dion song, My Heart Will Go On, written with Will Jennings sold an estimated 30 million units worldwide. He received eight other Oscar nominations, for the scores of Aliens, Field of Dreams, Apollo 13, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog and Avatar. As a songwriter, he earned an Oscar nomination and two 1987 Grammys for Somewhere Out There. The song was written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for An American Tail. He earned four more Grammys – one for instrumental composition for Glory and three for Titanic. His other credits include Michael Jackson’s Disneyland theme-park attractionCaptain EO, music for TV movies including A Piano for Mrs. Cimino, Extreme Close-Up and Freedom Song, new music for Katie Couric’s stint at the CBS Evening News andmusic for an airshow by the Horsemen in 2010. In November 2014 he premiered a double concerto for violin and cello in England. March 2015 saw the premiere of his concerto for four horns in London.
Horner is survived by his wife Sarah and their two daughters. The family have asked for privacy at this time. He was 61.