Oscar-winner Shore won the annual Classic FM listeners’ poll with his music for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Asked if he considers film music to be a type of classical music, he said it is an art form of its own that can be approached on its own terms.

“It’s not the same as writing purely concert music,” the composer told John Brunning in an interview.
But there have been many great composers who have “written incredible pieces and also worked in film”, Shore says.

The Canadian-born composer might have included himself among those composers. As well as completing work on Peter Jackson’s third instalment of The Hobbit, Shore has recently written a number of concertos, including one for cello and one for piano, and a song cycle.

With so much work on his plate, Shore maintains a rigorous working schedule which includes daily composition.

“I write music every day and I have been doing that since I was a youngster,” Shore says of his routine of composing with a pencil on paper.

“It doesn’t feel like a day to me unless that pencil is moving on those pages and ideas are being formed.”