Essay On John Williams

Born on February 8th, 1932 in Floral Park, New York, John Williams has built a fantastic reputation over the past 60 years in cinematic and musical history. Even at age 83, he still composes and conducts musical concerts and film scores. Since 1952, Williams’s success as a composer and conductor has only increased and now he is one of the most popular and successful American orchestral composers of the modern age having created music for over eighty movies such as Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Seven Years in Tibet, The Lost World, Rosewood, Sleepers, Nixon, Sabrina, Schindler 's List, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Far and Away, JFK, Hook, Presumed Innocent, Always, Born on the Fourth of July, the Indiana Jones trilogy, The Accidental Tourist,

The young pianist and leader of his own jazz band moved to Los Angeles in 1948, and started experimenting with arranging tunes, showing his beginnings in composing music. At age 15, Williams determined he was going to become a concert pianist and at age 19, he premiered his first original composition. John’s high school education took place in North Hollywood High School, where he graduated in 1950, and later he attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College to study orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps. To keep his musical spirit alive, Williams began getting privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. After John Williams’s service, he attended Julliard in New York, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way, however, she still encouraged him to focus on composing which sent him back to Los Angeles, where the future maestro was ready to break into the Hollywood

John Williams has also led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop 's Conductor Laureate.

Williams’s personal life also contained downsides and hard times. In 1956, Williams married Barbara Ruick, an American actress and singer. Together they had three children: Jennifer, Joseph, who is the lead singer of Toto, and Mark Towner Williams. The two remained married until her death in 1974 and in 1980, Williams married Samantha Winslow, a photographer.

Overall, John Williams’s life has contained downsides and upsides but he has still managed to stay successful financially, as well as stay famous and frequently awarded. He has won five Academy Awards, seventeen Grammys, three Golden Globes, two Emmys and five BAFTA Awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. What makes John Williams so unique is his prosperity in not only Hollywood’s film industry, but also his accomplishment and achievement in music