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John Williams By AWOYE TIMPO
Whether on film, where he joins the worlds of words and images with music, or on stage, where he floats masterfully between the worlds of classical and film music, John Williams truly is a living legend. To this day, Williams has received 42 Academy Award nominations (more than any living person; he has won five). He has won 18 Grammy Awards and received numerous other nominations and awards.
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| John Williams (Photo by Bachrach) |
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John Towner Williams was born in Floral Park, N.Y., on February 8, 1932. He was the eldest of four children of Esther and Johnny Williams. As a child, Williams studied bassoon, cello, clarinet, trombone, and trumpet, and later formed a band with several friends. At age 15, he wanted to become a concert pianist.In 1948 the Williams family moved to Los Angeles. While attending North Hollywood High School he played, arranged, and composed for the school band. He later studied composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco at U.C.L.A.While in the U.S. Air Force, he conducted and arranged music for service bands. He was discharged in 1954 and settled in New York, where he studied piano with Rosina Lhévinne at Juilliard. During those years he also worked as a jazz pianist in nightclubs and played on recordings.In 1956, John Williams moved back to Los Angeles and worked as a pianist with Columbia Pictures and later, 20th Century Fox. He played on films including South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), and the television series Gilligan's Island.Growing dissatisfied as an orchestra pianist, Williams began to do orchestrations for composer Adolph Deutsch for the film The Apartment (1960) and Dimitri Tiomkin on The Guns of Navarone (1961). He also arranged for Frankie Laine and Mahalia Jackson, performed with Doris Day, and accompanied and conducted for Vic Damone.Williams was soon invited to orchestrate cues for such composers as Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, and Bernard Herrmann. His talents were recognized by Revue Studios (later known as Universal Television), where he was placed under contract. The contract with Revue indicated that he would compose almost 40 scores a year—typically 20 to 25 minutes of music per week.Feature film assignments followed, and Williams earned his first Academy Award nomination for adapting the song score to Valley of the Dolls (1967). Four years later, he won his first Academy Award for adapting the music for Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Academy Award nominations for films like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Tom Sawyer (1973) continued to earn him recognition in the years ahead, most notably from a director named Steven Spielberg. Their first collaboration was Sugarland Express (1974), followed by Jaws (1975), for which Williams received his second Academy Award. He has composed the score for nearly every Spielberg film including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Minority Report (2002), and Catch Me If You Can (2002). Steven Spielberg has called him "the poet in me."Spielberg introduced Williams to director George Lucas, spawning another great collaboration of contemporary American film. Lucas and Williams have since worked on many films including the Star Wars series (1977-2005). The soundtrack of the first Star Wars film sold more than four million copies and earned Williams his third Academy Award.In 1978, Williams was invited to conduct the Boston Pops Orchestra. The following year he became conductor of the Pops, a post he held for 14 years.
Williams' film scores have ranged from the luxurious symphonic fanfares of Star Wars and the aching melodies of Schindler's List (majestically played by Itzhak Perlman) to the playful jazz tunes of Catch Me If You Can. He has been near revolutionary in his career as a composer for film—most specifically by reintroducing the use of the symphony orchestra in film scores.Williams has also composed numerous concert pieces: two symphonies and a variety of concertos such as the celebrated Cello Concerto, which was premiered at Tanglewood by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with soloist Yo-Yo Ma in 1994. He has written and conducted four Olympic themes and served as guest conductor at orchestras across the globe.Upcoming projects include choral and orchestral works. Having recently passed his 70th birthday, John Williams continues to offer his film and concert audiences around the world a stunning array of emotional landscapes and memorable orchestrations. Juilliard will present Williams with the Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree on May 21.
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