John Williams (composer)

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For other people with the same name, see John Williams.
Williams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra during the recording of the score for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Williams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra during the recording of the score for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932 in New York City) is one of the most widely recognized composers of film scores. He is often credited with the revival of the grand symphonic film score, specifically with his richly thematic and highly popular 1977 score to George Lucas' Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

In addition to six Star Wars films, Williams has composed the music to some of the highest-grossing films of all time, including Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and three Harry Potter movies. While skilled in a variety of 20th century compositional idioms, his most familiar style may be described as a form of neoromanticism, informed by the large-scale orchestral music of the late 19th century and that of Williams's film-composing predecessors. The influence of Korngold and other Hollywood Golden Age composers is strong in much of Williams' most famous work. Although Williams is best known for heroic, rousing themes to adventure and fantasy films (such as Star Wars, Superman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark), his long career also includes many sensitive dramatic scores (such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan) and more experimental concert works.

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Early life

In 1948, John Williams and his family moved to Los Angeles, where he attended the University of California, Los Angeles. He also studied composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also taught another famous film score composer, Jerry Goldsmith.

In 1952, Williams was drafted and entered the United States Air Force, where he conducted and arranged music for Air Force bands. When discharged in 1954, he returned to New York. There, he went to Juilliard, one of the most well-known music schools in America and the alma mater of other famous musicians including the composer Philip Glass and violinist Itzhak Perlman (with whom Williams released an album, Cinema Serenade, in 1997). He studied piano at the school with Rosina Lhevinne. In New York, he worked as a jazz pianist. He also played with noted composer Henry Mancini and even performed on the recording of the famous Peter Gunn theme.

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Film scoring

Williams later returned to Los Angeles, where he started working in the film studios. There he worked with some of the finest film score composers of that time: Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, and Alfred Newman. He began his career composing TV scores for series including Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, and The Time Tunnel.

In the early 1970s, he established himself as a composer for big-budget disaster films with scores for The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and The Poseidon Adventure. In 1974, Williams was approached by a young Steven Spielberg to write the music for his feature debut, The Sugarland Express. They re-teamed for the director's second film, Jaws, featuring an ominous two-note motif representing the shark. Over thirty years later, the Williams-Spielberg collaboration has proven to be one of Hollywood's most enduring and fruitful. To date, Williams has composed the music to all but one of Spielberg's movies (Quincy Jones was composer for the 1985's The Color Purple). In 1977, Spielberg's friendship with director George Lucas led to Williams's composing for the Star Wars movies (also see Star Wars music).

He wrote the scores for several TV shows, including Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, and NBC Nightly News. He has been nominated for 43 Academy Awards, of which he has won five (for Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler's List). He currently holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person and has the third most Oscar nominations in history; he also holds the record for the most Academy Award losses ever (38).

Williams has received two Emmys, eighteen Grammies, and has been inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, and received a 2004 Kennedy Center Honor. He also won a Classical Brit award in 2005 for his soundtrack work of the previous year.

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Notable film scores

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Notable television themes

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Conducting and performing

From 1980 to 1993, Williams was the principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. He is now the Laureate Conductor of the Pops and still has ties to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which have much overlap and both perform out of Boston's Symphony Hall. He conducts several concerts with the Boston Pops every year, particularly during their Holiday Pops season and typically a week of concerts in May. He also frequently enlists the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the official chorus of the BSO, to sing choral music in his movie scores (such as Saving Private Ryan).

He is an accomplished pianist, as can be heard in various scores in which he provides solos, as well as a handful of classical recordings.

Williams has written various concert works, including concerti for bassoon, clarinet, flute, violin, horn, trumpet, cello, and tuba.

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The Olympics

Williams, being the most prominent composer in North America, has also composed the official theme for all four Olympic Games held on the continent in the last 26 years. They are:

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External links

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