John Williams

John Towner Williams ( New York City , February 8 1932 ) is an American composer of film music . He is one of the most famous postwar film composers and is seen as the best film composer who has ever seen the film industry. He is also held responsible for the revival of the classic film score . He was also conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Known films that feature music hand Williams: Star Wars , Superman , Indiana Jones , Jaws , Jurassic Park , ET the Extra-Terrestrial , Schindler's List and the Harry Potter movies .

He was 48 times nominated for an Oscar, which he eventually won five (position in July 2013).

Content

 * 1 Biography
 * 1.1 Training
 * 1.2 Early work
 * 1.3 Early collaboration with Steven Spielberg
 * 1.4 The major breakthrough
 * 1.5 Conductor of the Boston Pops
 * 1.6 Retirement
 * 1.7 Personal
 * 2 Known soundtrack
 * 3 Other work
 * 4 Hit
 * 4.1 Albums
 * 5 External links

[Biography edit ]
Williams was born in Flushing , Queens in New York on February 8 1932 . He was the eldest son of the family of Esther and Johnny Williams. His father, a jazz drummer, was one of the original members of the Raymond Scott Quintet and later percussionist in the CBS Radio Orchestra and the NBC's Your Hit Parade. Music played so all his life an important role in the early years of John, his brothers Jerry and Don and his sister Joan. From the age of seven, he learned to play the piano all; later, trombone, trumpet and clarinet.

In 1948 the family moved to Los Angeles, where his father freelancer was with many film orchestras. After Williams graduated in 1950 at the North Hollywood High School, where he arranged and composed music pieces for the school orchestra, he took courses piano and composition at UCLA and private lessons with pianist-arrangerBobby Eps . It was very clear that he was the eldest son of the family the same way as his father would strike and musician would be. Williams chose his favorite instrument and was pianist. He composed his first serious work, a piano sonata, as a nineteen year old student. In the fifties and sixties he played the piano on several recordings of film and television music by composers Jerry Goldsmith , Henry Mancini and Elmer Bernstein .

After he was drafted in 1951 for military service, he went for three years to the United States Air Force , where he worked for the Air Force orchestra conducted and arranged.

Education [ Edit ]
After his discharge in 1954 he returned to studies back to New York and he spent a year at the renowned Juilliard School as a piano student of Rosina Lhevinne . To make a living, he worked evenings as a pianist in jazz clubs. After that year he returned to his family in Los Angeles.

In 1957 he was hired by Columbia Pictures, one of the major film companies, and came under the direction of conductor Morris Stoloff . As he arrived in Stoloffs Pictures Orchestra, where his father was also a member of. Meanwhile, he was also supervisor of singer Vic Damone .

Early work [ edit ]
With the TV movie Because They're Young, he took his first steps in television and film land. He was asked for all kinds of TV shows, and even though he had initially been planning to become a pianist, Williams chose, encouraged by family and friends, to earn his living by composing for television. He took care episodes in dramas such as Mod Squad, westerns such as Wagon Train and famous sitcoms like Gilligan's Islandand Bachelor Father . But with the series Checkmate began in 1960. Williams really make themselves heard; it was his first score that was commercially intended.

In 1963 he made ​​his first film for the big screen: Diamond Head . He then worked on the series Kraft Suspense Theater .

Early 60's he proved a talented composer and cared melodramas ( The Secret Ways ), westerns ( The Rare Breed ), thrillers ( Daddy's Gone A Hunting ), war movies ( None but the Brave ), but mostly comedies likeBachelor Flat , Gidget Goes to Rome , John Goldfarb Please Come Home , How To Steal A Million and Dick Van Dyke movie Fitzwilly . He was also hired by Irwin Allen TV series to provide music, like Lost In Space ,Time Tunnel and Valley of the Giants .

In 1968 he composed as a tribute to Aaron Copland, a pioneer in American music and good friend of Williams, the score for The Reivers. While he continued to deliver scores, there was a good relationship between Williams and Copland, resulting in a set of scores for disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake (1974). He also wrote in the 70 still include the John Wayne film The Cowboys (1972), Robert Altman Images (1972), further include The Paper Chase (1973), The Long Goodbye (1973), Cinderella Liberty (1973) and Conrack (1974).

Start working with Steven Spielberg [ edit ]
In 1974, John Williams was approached by the young director Steven Spielberg, who, following the score for The Reivers , to Williams asked if he wanted his debut feature music. Williams agreed and this was, without knowing it, the beginning of a long association, one of the longest in the history of film. Williams has since all but one ( The Color Purple ) with all films of Spielberg music. Their collaboration began in 1974 with The Sugarland Express, in 1975 followed Jaws. These bombed John Williams immediately among the best of all film composers.

Immediately after Jaws, he composed the music for The Eiger Sanction (1975), Midway (1976), The Missouri Breaks , Family Plot , Black Sunday (1977) and many others.

The big breakthrough [ edit ]
When George Lucas in 1977, someone was looking for the music of his movie Star Wars, Spielberg recommended Williams to him. The score of the film is gone down in history as one of the main, if not the most important symphonic oeuvres of the 20th century, making Williams became known. He was awarded include an Oscar for best music (already third) and three Grammy Awards . The score of Star Wars was the subject of many recordings and concerts all over the world. When the Oregon Orchestra Star Wars Concert held in January 1978 was 12,000 people in Portland Colisseum .

After the music for Star Wars, Williams composed the score for the Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Fury , Superman (1978) and Dracula (1979).

Conductor of the Boston Pops [ edit ]
After the death of Arthur Fielder (1979), conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, was "Committee for the Future of the Pops" together to find a new conductor who could build on the Fielder tradition and the most famous symphonic orchestra the United States could lead. In the summer of 1979 they had the number of contenders already reduced to five: the assistant conductor of the Pops, Harry Ellis Dickson, the conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra, Erich Kunzel , the bandleader and TV personality Mitch Miller , the director of the Symphony of Flint, Michigan, John Covelli and John Williams. On January 10, 1980 Symphony Management stated that it had signed a three year contract with John Williams, who thus became the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops. Although Arthur Fielder was an authority, Williams was after his concert with the Pops on January 22, 1980 received by both public and the critics with enthusiasm. John Rockwell of The New York Times, many people with his criticism brought down, wrote: The crisply efficient performances he elicited from the orchestra Suggested That the Pops chose wisely.

The 80 very least begun quietly: first the famous score for the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the Oscar-winning score for Spielberg's blockbuster ET the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). There also were the scores for the Star Wars Sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), the scores for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), The River (1984), The Accidental Tourist(1988), Always (1989) Presumed Innocent (1990) Home Alone (1990), Hook (1990), JFK (1991) and Far and Away (1992).

He also composed the music for even Jurassic Park (1993) and Schindler's List (1993).

[Pension edit ]
Williams at the Avery Fisher Hall in 2007

When Williams was appointed in 1980 as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, it was initially a three-year contract, but it was renewed. He was conductor for twelve years, until he went in 1993, at its 61st, retired.

But retirement meant going for Williams does not stop working and he continued to compose: include Sydney Pollack's Sabrina (1995), Barry Levinsons Sleepers (1996), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Spielberg's sequel to the recordverbrijzelende Jurassic Park Jean-Jacques Annauds Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Steven Spielberg's work on the negerslaverij Amistad (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). The new Star Wars movies The Phantom Menace , Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (1999-2005), the first three Harry Potter movies (2001-2004), Memoirs of a Geisha and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull were provided by his music. His most recent work includes Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin (2011) War Horse (2011) and Lincoln (2012).

At an early stage of the production of the new Star Wars film, Star Wars Episode VII, made ​​director JJ Abrams announced that a return of John Williams for Star Wars was seriously considered. [2] In the summer of 2013 confirmed Williams would indeed provide the music for Episode VII. [3]

Personal [ edit ]
His wife, with whom he was married for nineteen years, died in 1974 of brain hemorrhage. Williams married a second time in King's Chapel House in Boston on June 9, 1980 with Samantha Winslow, a photographer and interior designer he knew in Hollywood for five years. Although he lives in Boston, he maintains ties with Los Angeles tightly by his interest in film music and because his family lives there. His sons Joseph and Mark have their musical careers.

Son Joseph was lead singer of the group Toto, where he has sung the hit stop loving you. Together with Mark, he wrote the song Home of the brave. His daughter Jennifer has a doctor's surgery and his retired parents still live in Los Angeles. Now he is retired, he concentrates on his hobbies (golf, tennis, playing chamber music with friends), but continues to work in spite of everything.

Famous film [ edit ]

 * Jaws (1 and 2)
 * Star Wars (both trilogies)
 * Close Encounters of the Third Kind
 * Superman
 * Indiana Jones
 * ET the Extra-Terrestrial
 * Hook
 * Schindler's List
 * Jurassic Park (1, 2 and 3)
 * Saving Private Ryan
 * Catch Me If You Can
 * Harry Potter
 * The Terminal
 * Memoirs of a Geisha
 * The Towering Inferno

Other work [ edit ]
In 1951 he wrote a piano sonata and early 60s, he wrote music for jazz combos, dance bands and small symphonic ensembles. His essay for strings was played in 1966 for the first time by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In the same year he wrote his Symphony No. 1.

In 1968 he wrote a Sinfonietta for wind (wind instruments and percussion); further, he composed concertos for flute, violin (which were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra), horn, viola, tuba and clarinet, as well as a musical (the only one in his oeuvre), Thomas and the King called. A cello concerto was premiered in 1994 with Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a bassoon concerto in 1995 with the New York Philharmonic and a trumpet concerto in 1996 with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

Furthermore, he composed many concert versions of his film scores he wrote light classical music and a second symphony.

Williams Boston Pops concert tour in the US In 1985, 1989 and 1992 and the tours in Japan in 1987, 1990 and 1993. He was also in demand as a guest conductor with many major orchestras.

Williams finished the famous Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev to a listenable piece of music for children.

He was asked to write music for various special occasions. He wrote Liberty Fanfare following the centennial of the Statue of Liberty , We're looking good! for the Special Olympics and the popular American NBC New Theme The Mission. He also asked the fanfares for the Olympics to write. He composed in 1984 Olympic Fanfare and Theme for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, in 1988 Olympic Spirit, Summon the Heroes for the Olympic Games in Atlanta and Call of the Champions for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City .

On the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama wrote John Williams' Air and Simple Gifts ". It was conducted on 20 January 2009 (not really, because, as a few days later became known, "geplaybackt") by Yo-Yo Ma ( cello ), Itzhak Perlman ( violin ), Gabriela Montero ( piano ) and Anthony McGill ( clarinet ).