John Williams
- In full:
- John Towner Williams
- Born:
- February 8, 1932, Queens, New York, U.S.
- Also Known As:
- John Towner Williams
- Notable Works:
- “Air and Simple Gifts”
- “Star Wars”
- On the Web:
- Independent - Composer John Williams, 90, steps away from film, but not music (Oct. 28, 2024)
John Williams (born February 8, 1932, Queens, New York, U.S.) is an American composer who created some of the most iconic film scores of all time. He scored more than a hundred movies, many of which were directed by Steven Spielberg. Williams is also known for his work on numerous Star Wars films.
Early life
Williams was raised in New York, the son of a percussionist in the CBS radio orchestra. He was exposed to music from a young age and began studying piano as a child, later learning trumpet, trombone, and clarinet. He started writing music early, trying to orchestrate his own pieces as a teen. In 1948 Williams moved to Los Angeles with his family, where he studied composition privately and also briefly at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1951 he was drafted into the U.S. Air Force, and during his service he arranged band music and began conducting.
From jazz pianist to film composer
- Fiddler on the Roof
- Jaws
- Star Wars (later Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope)
- E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
- Schindler’s List
After leaving the air force in 1954, Williams briefly studied piano at the Juilliard School of Music and worked as a jazz pianist in New York City, both in clubs and for recordings. He later returned to California, where he worked as a Hollywood studio pianist for such films as Some Like It Hot (1959), West Side Story (1961), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). During that time he also began composing for television, writing songs for such shows as Wagon Train and Gilligan’s Island.
In the late 1960s Williams began composing for films, and he soon became known from his work on big-budget disaster films, including The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Spielberg, then an aspiring director, asked Williams to score his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). Thus began a decades-long partnership between the two, with Williams scoring some of Spielberg’s best-known films, including the shark-attack thriller Jaws (1975), the sci-fi flicks Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the rollicking Indiana Jones series (1981, 1984, 1989, 2008, 2023), the dinosaur action movie Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World (1997), the Holocaust biopic Schindler’s List (1993), the war drama Saving Private Ryan (1998), the biopic Lincoln (2012), the coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans (2022), and many more.
Throughout his extensive career Williams created some of the most memorable music in movie history, including the scores and iconic theme songs for nine of the Star Wars films (1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2015, 2017, and 2019) and the first three Harry Potter films (2001, 2002, and 2004). He also composed themes for some of the NBC network’s news programs and for the 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2002 Olympic Games. He was known especially for his lush symphonic style, which helped bring symphonic film scores back into vogue after synthesizers had started to become the norm.
Concert composer
In addition to his film work, Williams was well known as a concert composer and conductor. He composed symphonies as well as concertos for various instruments. In 1980 he became the conductor of the Boston Pops, touring and recording extensively and sometimes leading the orchestra in live renditions of his popular film scores. After his retirement in 1993, Williams remained a laureate conductor for the Pops and guest conducted for such orchestras as the London Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2009 he composed and arranged a song for the inauguration ceremony of U.S. Pres. Barack Obama.
Awards
Williams received many honors and awards for his work. He was nominated for more than 50 Academy Awards and won 5: for his adaptation of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971), for Jaws (1975), for Star Wars (1977; later called Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope), for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and for Schindler’s List (1993). He was also the recipient of 3 Emmy Awards and more than 20 Grammy Awards. In 2004 he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2009 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to an artist by the U.S. government, for his achievements in symphonic music for motion pictures.
