John Powell and Other Film Composers You Should Know

We are sure you’ve heard of John Williams, one of the best film composers of all time, but here are a few other composers whose music we know you’ll recognize! For example, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dune, Interstellar, Inception, and No Time to Die were all composed by Hans Zimmer, and one-third of composer John Powell’s entire feature-film output has been for such top-grossing pics as Kung Fu Panda, Happy Feet, the Ice Age series, and How to Train Your Dragon. The latter earned Powell a 2010 Oscar nomination for original score and will be played at the Zimmerli concert, Fantasy and Firebird. “‘Music does half of the storytelling,’ says writer-director Dean DeBlois” of How to Train Your Dragon 3. “In the case of John Powell, a storyteller in his own right, he is a partner from the beginning. He finds themes that I might not even be consciously aware of and brings them to the surface.”