John Williams

Genre: Theme Composer

John Williams is the man behind the music of many of today's greatest movies. The music scores from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Indiana Jones, E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Patriot, and many more were the genius of John Williams. Many of us have heard his works, but how much do we know about the composer?

John Williams was born on Februrary 8th, 1932, in the city of recent tragedy, New York. He lived there for 16 years before he moved with his family to Los Angeles (L.A.), the city of angels. While living in L.A., John Williams attended UCLA and studied composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After Williams spent a short period in the United States Air Force, he returned to New York.

While there, he studied piano with Madame Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard School. To make end's meat, John worked as a jazz pianist in both clubs and on recordings. Williams again moved to L.A. where he started his career in composing music for film studios. He worked with composers like Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Wax Man. He went to work on writing music for many television programs in the 1960's. He won two Emmys for his work.

John Williams became the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra since its founding in 1885. He led the Boston Pops on tours in the United States of America (1985, 1989, 1992) and on three tours in Japan (1987, 1990, 1993). Thirteen years after he became the conductor of the Boston Pops, he was granted the title of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor after he retired. Williams has also appeared as a guest conductor with many major orchestras, the London Symphony, the Cleaveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orcheatra, the Denver Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, just to name a few. Fourteen American Universities have granted him honorary doctorate degrees.

John Williams has written more than just music for movies and television. He has written many concert pieces over the years including a bassoon concerto that was premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1995. He also wrote themes for the Olympics in 1984, 1988, and 1996 and is the composer of "We're looking good!" for the Special Olympics.

Biography by: Tom Nobbe
Submitted On :11.23.01



Works Cited and Consulted

John Williams
John Williams, Composer