His music generally defies categorization, but most of his most popular scores are arresting, grandiloquent compositions, often using instruments atypical of blockbuster movie scores (electric guitars in The Dark Knight, or a church organ in Interstellar, for instance). In recent years, he’s grown even more versatile, scoring multiple animated films as well as collaborating on Hidden Figures with hip-hop star Pharrell Williams.

Touring isn’t new for the German composer—he trekked across Europe last year—but this summer’s concert series is by far his largest undertaking, and it’s the first time he’ll tour the United States. Zimmer, who takes over 20 musicians with him on the road, and plays several instruments himself, told Billboard that he wants to change how Hollywood composers are perceived:

I wanted to break the image of the film composer, the guy with the large black grand piano and the orchestra and the conductor, so I figured out a different way of doing it. I wanted to take away all the barriers between the audience and musicians and what I really wanted to do was celebrate the musicians, all those guys that are amazing and a lot of people have heard them, but not a lot of people have seen them.

Indeed, like any top 40 song you hear on the radio, Zimmer’s work is ubiquitous. He’s written themes for Batman; Superman; Simba; Maximus; Captain Jack Sparrow; Sherlock Holmes; and Spider-Man, among other beloved movie heroes of the last three decades. He has written the score for six of blockbuster director Christopher Nolan’s last seven films. And he has mentored a throng of younger composers who have gone onto score films including Mad Max: Fury Road, X-Men, and the upcoming Wonder Woman movie.

Zimmer has helped turn what was once merely a component of the film industry into an industry all its own. It might seem sacrilege to say (apologies in advance to the “BeyHive“), but Zimmer’s mark on the world of film music borders on Beyoncé-ian.

Now he has the massive, worldwide concert tour to prove it.

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