John Williams Essay

John Williams is one of this century’s most popular and successful American orchestral composers. While best known for his film scores and ceremonial music, Williams is also a wellknown composer and conductor of concert works. He has composed the music and served as music director for nearly eighty films. His scores are lush, complex and exciting often relying heavily on brass more than strings. He has an amazing ability to craft a theme that fits the emotional tone of a film and continues to echo that theme at just the right times and levels.
John Williams was born into a musical family in Long Island, New York on February 8,
1932. John’s father played in the Raymond Scott Quintet as a jazz percussionist. At the age of sixteen his family moved
to Los Angeles where, after graduating from North Hollywood High
School, he enrolled at UCLA to study music. During that time he also studied music privately under the guidance of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a well-known composer for MGM studios.
Before completing college John was drafted into the Air Force in 1952 where he was tasked as a conductor for the U.S.
Air Force Band. Once his service term ended Williams moved to New
York and finished his education at the Juilliard Music School where he studied piano. While in
New York Williams played as a jazz pianist in many of New York’s clubs. His piano playing gained the attention of Henry Mancini, a Grammy Award winning conductor who recruited
John to work as a studio musician. After completing his studies at Julliard John returned to Los
Angeles and found work as an orchestrator at various film studios. He also found work as a studio pianist performing on scores for movies and TV Shows such as Peter Gun, Creature from the Black Lagoon Gilligan’s Island, and Lost in Space. Hollywood began to take notice of John for his versatility in composing piano, jazz and symphonic music.
In 1974, Williams was asked by then new director Steven Spielberg to compose the score for “The Sugarland”. Spielberg was very impressed with Williams’ work and was convinced that John could compose the perfect soundtrack for any of his films. This formed a great working relationship that helped create many of today’s famous film scores such
as;
“Jaws”,” Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, the first three Harry
Potter films, and most popular of all “Star Wars”. In fact out of the twenty seven theatrical films
Spielberg has directed, the 1985 film the “The Color Purple” is the only film not composed by
John Williams.
John has also composed scores for many other directors throughout his career. In total
Williams has composed the music and served as director for nearly eighty films and is continuing to produce work still.
His work composing films scores has won him many prestigious awards. Here is a highlight of his accomplishments:
 Four Golden Globe Awards
 Five Academy Awards with forty eight nominations
 Eighteen Grammy Awards with fifty eight nominations
 Two Emmy Awards with five nominations
Williams has also composed a large collection of works that are independent from the film industry. The Boston Pops Orchestra named John its conductor in 1985 and where he worked as its primary conductor for nine years. He has written many concert pieces, including a sinfonietta for wind ensemble, a cello concerto, a symphony, and many other pieces. One of his more notable pieces is his bassoon concerto, "The Five Sacred Trees", which was premiered in
1995 by the New York Philharmonic and principal bassoon player Judith LeClair . It was later recorded for Sony Classical by Williams with LeClair and the London Symphony Orchestra. Act as a guest conductor John Williams has worked with a number of major orchestras, including the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago
Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic