Extremely sad news to wake up to this morning as we hear that Oscar winning composer James Horner has been killed in a plane crash.

The 61 year old Titanic / Avatar composer was piloting the plane near Santa Barbara yesterday when it came down. His death has been confirmed by Horner’s assistant Sylvia Patrycja who said on Facebook:

“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent. He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road.”

We had the privaledge of speaking to James a few times, most recently at an event celebrating 25 years of Titanic at the Royal Albert Hall 6 weeks ago where his love of all things cinema shone through. The event was also attended by both James Cameron and his Producing partner Jon Landau who both praised Horner for his amazing work on Titanic and as a composer.

titanic-live-royal-albert-hall-1

Horner’s work also includes Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13. He was currently working on projects which included Avatar 2, 3 and 4 and has completed scores in Southpaw (starring Jake Gyllenhaal), Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Wolf Totem and The 33 (the story of the trapped Chilean miners) still left to be released.

In his career his received 10 Oscar nominations and won two statues. He will be hugely missed.

RIP James Horner.

Our Interview with James following his Royal Albert Hall Performance in April 2015

Twitter Tributes