Hans Zimmer

Overview

After being born in Frankfurt, Hans Florian Zimmer moved to London as a teenager where he was educated at the Hurtwood House school. Zimmer began his career as a keyboardist and synthesist and says he first became interested in music when he used it as a form of escapism during his childhood after the death of his father. He worked with various bands throughout the late mid to late seventies and can even be seen briefly in the music video to 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles. Zimmer's first orchestral recording work happened in the late 1980s when he joined with famous composer Stanley Myers to open the Lillie Yard recording studio.

In 1988 Zimmer came into the public eye after composing the music for Rain Man. Since then he has composed for such films as Pearl Harbor, The Ring, The Last Samurai, The Simpsons Movie, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and a number of Christopher Nolan's films. Having composed the music for the film The Lion King, his first video game credit was in The Lion King video game which featured music from the film and Kingdom Hearts II contains music from the Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl soundtrack which Zimmer worked on. All of his compositions for Modern Warfare 2 are original pieces although it can be noted that this work does bear resemblance to his compositions for the Black Hawk Down soundtrack.