Howard Shore and The Lord Of The Rings: Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2004 - Academy Award winner Howard Shore will conduct the North American debut performance of "The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra and Chorus" on February 23, at The Montreal Highlights Festival. This debut performance, to take place at Montreal, Canada's Salle Wilfried-Pelletier, Place des Arts Concert Hall, launches the North American and International tour of the symphonic work and represents its first ever performance outside of New Zealand.

"It is very gratifying to see the music from The Lord of the Rings trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world" stated Shore.

After four years of writing the music for the trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra and Chorus" was realized - each movement corresponding to each book within Tolkein's tome. The concert will feature 200 performers on stage, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, adult and boy chorus' from Montreal and numerous instrumental and vocal soloists. The performance incorporates the imagery of renowned Tolkein artist, Alan Lee.

Upcoming concert tour cities in 2004 & 2005 include: London, Sydney, Amsterdam, Central Park in New York; Philadelphia, the Hollywood Bowl and Seville, among others.

Howard Shore was recently honored with 2 Golden Globe Awards and 2 Oscar Nominations for "Best Original Score" and "Best Original Song" ("Into the West") from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In addition, he also received the "Best Score" Award from the Broadcast Film Critics and the Chicago Film Critics for that film. For the first film in that trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Shore won the Oscar, the Grammy, the Los Angeles and Chicago Film Critics Awards and most recently was awarded the Grammy for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The soundtracks for The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers have sold over 3 million albums worldwide and both albums have remained on the Billboard Top 100 Soundtracks chart since their original release in 2001 and 2002, respectively. The U.K.'s Classic FM voted The Lord of the Rings soundtracks "Best Film Score of All Time" for two consecutive years.

Howard Shore has composed the scores to more than 60 films including The Silence Of The Lambs and Philadelphia, directed by Jonathan Demme; Ed Wood, directed by Tim Burton; Se7en, The Game and Panic Room, directed by David Fincher; and Gangs Of New York and After Hours, directed by Martin Scorsese. He has also collaborated on ten films with David Cronenberg has including The Fly, Dead Ringers, eXistenZ and Spider. His other films also included the well loved comedies Analyze This, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Big.

Shore's upcoming projects include Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and Peter

Jackson's King Kong.