John Williams

John Towner Williams was born in New York City and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1948. The son of jazz drummer Johnny Williams, he began studying piano at age eight and developed as a pianist, arranger and bandleader. At 15, he decided to pursue a career as a concert pianist, and at 19 he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.

He studied composition at UCLA and privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, then served in the U.S. Air Force as an orchestrator for the Air Force Band. After his military service, Williams studied piano at the Juilliard School with Madame Rosina Lhevinne while working as a jazz pianist in New York nightclubs and on recordings. Lhevinne encouraged him to concentrate on composition, prompting his return to Los Angeles and the film industry.

Williams began in Hollywood as a studio pianist, session musician and orchestrator. He played on or contributed to productions including Peter Gunn, South Pacific, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and To Kill a Mockingbird. He also worked with established composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman and Franz Waxman, and arranged recordings for performers including Doris Day and Mahalia Jackson.

His early composing work included television series such as Alcoa Premiere, Checkmate, Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. He received Emmy recognition for Heidi and Jane Eyre, while early film scores included Daddy-O, Because They're Young and William Wyler's How to Steal a Million. In 1971, he won his first Academy Award for adapting the music for Fiddler on the Roof, followed by prominent scores for The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno and Images.

Williams first worked with director Steven Spielberg on The Sugarland Express in 1974. Their partnership was cemented by Jaws in 1975, for which Williams won the Academy Award for Original Score. The collaboration went on to include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War Horse, The BFG and many other films.

The Spielberg-Williams partnership has produced almost 50 films. Williams's work for Spielberg has ranged from adventurous and expansive orchestral writing to the restrained score for Schindler's List, which earned him another Academy Award. His other major film work includes Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Home Alone, The Accidental Tourist, Born on the Fourth of July, Memoirs of a Geisha and The Fabelmans.

Spielberg introduced Williams to George Lucas, and they first collaborated on Star Wars in 1977. Williams wrote the music for the franchise's films through 2005, including the original trilogy and the prequel films. The score for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope helped revive the grand symphonic sound associated with classic Hollywood cinema and became the best-selling score-only soundtrack of its time.

Williams's film style is marked by full Romantic orchestration and recurring musical motives that gain meaning as a story develops. Examples include the two-note motive in Jaws and the five-note signaling motive in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His film music has been credited with bringing traditional orchestral scoring techniques to a new generation of moviegoers.

Alongside his film and television work, Williams has composed extensively for the concert stage. His works include symphonies, concertos for flute, violin, clarinet, viola, oboe, tuba, bassoon, trumpet, horn and cello, as well as Seven for Luck, a song cycle using texts by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. His cello concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and premiered by Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood in 1994.

In January 1980, Williams became the nineteenth music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding Arthur Fiedler. He led the orchestra until December 1993 and then became its laureate conductor, while also holding the title of Artist-in-Residence at Tanglewood. His conducting and composing have taken him to orchestras including the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra.

Williams has composed music for major cultural and sporting events, including Olympic themes for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Games and the 2002 Winter Games. His other ceremonial works include Liberty Fanfare, written for the 1986 rededication of the Statue of Liberty, American Journey, Soundings for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Air and Simple Gifts for the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.