After being out of commission for a couple of weeks with a fried hard drive, I want to continue the Great Music series. This week I want to focus on the composer, John Williams. Many of you may not be familiar with his name but ALL of you are familiar with his music. In the last 30 years I would guess that everyone in America has heard his music and probably half the population around the world has also.
I know many of you are trying to remember “why do I know that name”. The answer is because he has written the music behind most of the big movie blockbusters of the last 30 years. Has anyone seeing at least one of these films?
1 – The Star War Series
2 – The Indiana Jones Series
3 – Jaws
4 – E.T.
5 – Superman
6 – Home Alone Series
7 – Jurassic Park
8 – The Harry Potter series
9 – Schindler’s List
John Williams is the most prolific composer to come out of America and his music is easily the equal of “those old dead white guys” who wrote music a couple hundred years ago. John Williams was born on Long Island, NY in 1932. His father was a jazz drummer with a number of bands who played
bands who played in NYC. Music was a big part of John’s youth. The family moved to Los Angeles when John was 16 as his father sought new music opportunities in the movie industry. After attending USC for a short period of time, John enlisted in the Air Force where his duties consisted of not flying, not maintaining planes but working with and participating in the Air Force Band.
In 1955 when John finished his Air Force duties he attended two of the most famous music schools in the country, the Julliard School and Eastman School of Music, both in New York. He then left to pursue his musical dreams back in Los Angeles. Since he had connections with the film industry that is where he started to work, writing snippets of music for various films. He established a relationship with Steven Spielberg which was the entre into writing music for the blockbuster films that followed.
While still writing film scores William kept his hand in the Classical music world as principle Conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993. Currently, Williams considers himself retired at age 87 withdrawing from writing scores for movies but making an occasional appearance with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
To illustrate Williams composing ability, I have chosen one of his lesser known compositions than his famous Star Wars pieces. The music I have chosen is his score for the movie Born on the 4th of July. The opening trumpet solo has always been a searing arrow straight to my soul and the music has a way of coming to the forefront of my brain whenever I am troubled. So here is a link to what I consider the most brilliant of Williams music compositions.