John Williams

Early life and education

John Towner Williams was born on February 8, 1932, in Queens, New York City, to Esther (née Towner) and Johnny Williams, a jazz drummer and percussionist who played with the Raymond Scott Quintet. He has an older sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Jerry and Don, who play on his film scores. Williams said of his lineage: "My father was a Maine man—we were very close. My mother was from Boston. My father's parents ran a department store in Bangor, Maine, and my mother's father was a cabinetmaker." John Williams senior collaborated with Bernard Herrmann, and his son sometimes joined him in rehearsals.

In 1948, the Williams family moved to Los Angeles. John attended North Hollywood High School and graduated in 1950. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied composition privately with the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Williams also attended Los Angeles City College for one semester to play for the school's studio jazz band.

In 1951, Williams joined the U.S. Air Force, where he played the piano and bass and conducted and arranged music for the U.S. Air Force Band. In March 1952, he was assigned to the Northeast Air Command 596th Air Force Band, and after military training at the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, he was stationed at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. While there, he attended music courses at the University of Arizona. Williams was then stationed at Pepperrell Air Force Base in St. John's, Newfoundland for two years.

In 1955, following his service, Williams moved to New York City to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at Juilliard. Williams neither enrolled in courses nor did he graduate from the school, instead taking private lessons from Lhévinne at her practice room on campus. He originally planned on becoming a concert pianist, but after hearing John Browning and Van Cliburn perform, he switched his focus to composition, realizing "I could write better than I could play." During his studies, Williams found work in many of the city's jazz clubs as a pianist.

Career

Early career

Following his studies with Lhévinne, Williams moved back to Los Angeles, where he began working as an orchestrator at film studios. During this period, Williams worked with such composers as Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman, and with fellow orchestrators Conrad Salinger and Bob Franklyn.

Williams was also a studio pianist and session musician, performing scores by Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and Henry Mancini. One of his first jobs was working under mentor Alfred Newman with an uncredited orchestral role for Carousel (1956), starring his soon-to-be wife Barbara Ruick.

With Mancini, he recorded the scores of Peter Gunn (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and Charade (1963), and played the piano part of the guitar-piano ostinato in Mancini's Peter Gunn title theme. With Elmer Bernstein, he performed on the scores for Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Williams was also the pianist on the scores of Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960), Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's West Side Story (1961) and Blake Edwards's The Great Race (1966).

He released several jazz albums under the name Johnny Williams, including Jazz Beginnings, World on a String and The John Towner Touch. Williams also served as music arranger and bandleader for a series of popular music albums alongside Ray Vasquez and Frankie Laine.

Film and television scoring

In 1952, Williams wrote his first film composition while stationed at Pepperrell Air Force Base for You Are Welcome, a promotional film created for the Province of Newfoundland tourist information office. Williams's first feature film composition was for Daddy-O (1958), followed two years later by Because They're Young. Williams also composed music for television, including Bachelor Father (1957–59), the Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963–65), Lost in Space (1965–68), The Time Tunnel (1966–67) and Land of the Giants (1968–70), the latter three created by producer Irwin Allen. He also worked on several episodes of M Squad (1957–60) and Checkmate (1960–62) and the pilot episode of Gilligan's Island (1964–67).

The American-Japanese anti-war epic None but the Brave (1965) marked the beginning of Williams's full transition from television to major Hollywood film composing, and shaped his style for future blockbusters. A Variety reviewer highlighted his score for providing "excellent background". The film was also Williams's first collaboration with Frank Sinatra, who directed and starred in it. He later conducted for Sinatra at venues such as a Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center gala.

Williams called William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966) "the first film I ever did for a major, super-talent director". He received his first Academy Award nomination for his score for Valley of the Dolls (1967), and was nominated again for Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969). His first win was for Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score, for Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof (1971). He scored Robert Altman's Images (1972) and The Long Goodbye (1973). Of the latter, Pauline Kael wrote, "Williams' music is a parody of the movies' frequent overuse of a theme, and a demonstration of how adaptable a theme can be." Altman, known for giving actors free rein, had a similar approach to Williams, telling him to "do whatever you want. Do something you haven't done before."

His prominence grew in the early 1970s thanks to his work for Irwin Allen's disaster films The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno and Earthquake (both 1974). Williams named his Images score as a favorite; he recalls "the score used all kinds of effects for piano, percussion, and strings. It had a debt to Varèse, whose music enormously interested me. If I had never written film scores, if I had proceeded writing concert music, it might have been in this vein". As it happened, two of Williams's scores shaped the direction of his career.

Classical works and conducting

From 1980 to 1993, Williams served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor, succeeding Arthur Fiedler. Williams never met Fiedler in person but spoke to him by telephone. His arrival as the Pops' new leader in the spring of 1980 allowed him to devote part of the Pops' first PBS broadcast of the season to presenting his new compositions for The Empire Strikes Back. Williams almost ended his tenure with the Pops in 1984 when some players hissed while sight-reading a new Williams composition in rehearsal; Williams abruptly left the session and tendered his resignation. He initially cited mounting conflicts with his film composing schedule but later admitted a perceived lack of discipline in, and respect from, the Pops' ranks, culminating in this latest instance. After entreaties by the management and personal apologies from the musicians, Williams withdrew his resignation and continued as principal conductor for nine more years. In 1995, he was succeeded by Keith Lockhart, the former associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Williams is now the Pops' laureate conductor, thus maintaining his affiliation with its parent Boston Symphony Orchestra. Williams leads the Pops on several occasions each year, particularly during their Holiday Pops season and typically for a week of concerts in May. He conducts an annual Film Night at both Boston Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, where he frequently enlists the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Williams has written many concert pieces, including a symphony; a sinfonietta for wind ensemble; a concerto for horn written for Dale Clevenger, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's principal horn; a concerto for clarinet written for Michele Zukovsky, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's principal clarinetist, in 1991; a cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1994; concertos for the flute and violin recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra; and a trumpet concerto, which was premiered by The Cleveland Orchestra and their principal trumpet Michael Sachs in September 1996. His bassoon concerto, The Five Sacred Trees, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic and principal bassoon player Judith LeClair in 1995, was recorded for Sony Classical by Williams with LeClair and the London Symphony Orchestra. His "Violin Concerto No. 2" was written for and premiered by Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 2021, with Williams conducting.

Williams composed the Liberty Fanfare for the Statue of Liberty's rededication; "We're Lookin' Good!" for the Special Olympics in celebration of the 1987 International Summer Games; and themes for the 1984, 1988, 1996 and 2002 Olympic Games. One of his concert works, Seven for Luck, for soprano and orchestra, is a seven-piece song cycle based on the texts of former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove. It had its world premiere by the Boston Symphony under Williams with soprano Cynthia Haymon.

Personal life

In 1956, Williams married Barbara Ruick, an American actress and singer, and they remained married until her death in 1974. The couple had three children: Jennifer "Jenny" Williams Gruska (b. 1956), Mark Towner Williams (b. 1958), and Joseph Williams (b. 1960); the latter is best known as the lead singer of Toto. Through his daughter Jennifer, his grandchildren are Bobby Gruska and Ethan Gruska, who are the members of the duo band The Belle Brigade.

In 1980, Williams married Samantha Winslow, a photographer.

Awards, recognition and legacy

Norwegian composer Marcus Paus argues that Williams's "satisfying way of embodying dissonance and avant-garde techniques within a larger tonal framework" makes him "one of the great composers of any century". Similarly, his film music has clear influences from other classical and film composers, including Holst Stravinsky, Korngold and others. The Boston Globe named Williams as "the most successful composer of film music in the history of the medium".

Williams has been nominated for 54 Academy Awards, winning five; six Emmy Awards, winning three; 25 Golden Globe Awards, winning four; 77 Grammy Awards, winning 27; and has received seven British Academy Film Awards. With 54 Oscar nominations, Williams currently holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person and is the second most nominated person in Academy Awards history behind Walt Disney's 59. Williams is the only person to be nominated for an Academy Award in seven consecutive decades (the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s). He is also the oldest person, at age 91, ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. Forty-eight of Williams's Oscar nominations are for Best Original Score and five are for Best Original Song. He won four Oscars for Best Original Score (for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. and Schindler's List) and one for Best Adaptation and Original Song Score (for Fiddler on the Roof).

Williams was the subject of an hour-long documentary for the BBC in 1980, and was featured in a report on 20/20 in 1983. He has received several academic honors, including an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1980, as well as Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Boston College in 1993, from Harvard University in 2017, and from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. Williams was made an honorary brother of Kappa Kappa Psi at Boston University in 1993, upon his impending retirement from the Boston Pops. Since 1988, Williams has been honored with 15 Sammy Film Music Awards, the longest-running awards for film music recordings. In 2000, Williams received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Williams was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998. He has also been inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. Williams was honored with the annual Richard Kirk award at the 1999 BMI Film and TV Awards, recognizing his contribution to film and television music. In 2004, he received a Kennedy Center Honor. He won a Classic Brit Award in 2005 for his soundtrack work of the previous year.

Concert works

Concertos

1969: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra

1974: Violin Concerto No. 1

1985: Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra

1991: Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra

1993: Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, The Five Sacred Trees

1994: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra

1996: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra

1997: Elegy for Cello and Orchestra

2000: TreeSong for Violin and Orchestra

2002: Heartwood: Lyric Sketches for Cello and Orchestra

2002: Escapades for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (adapted from the Catch Me If You Can film score)

2003: Concerto for Horn and Orchestra

2009: Concerto for Viola and Orchestra

2009: On Willows and Birches, for Harp and Orchestra

2011: Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra

2014: Prelude and Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra

2017: Markings for Violin, Strings and Harp

2018: Highwood's Ghost, An Encounter for Cello, Harp and Orchestra

2021: Violin Concerto No. 2

Other orchestral works

1965: Prelude and Fugue (recorded on Stan Kenton Conducts the Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra (Capitol, 1965))

1965: Symphony no. 1

1965: Essay for Strings

1968: Sinfonietta for Wind Ensemble

1975: Thomas and the King – Musical

1980: Jubilee 350 Fanfare

1984: Olympic Fanfare & Theme

1986: Liberty Fanfare

1987: A Hymn to New England

1988: Fanfare for Michael Dukakis

1988: For New York

1990: Celebrate Discovery

1993: Sound the Bells!

1994: Song for World Peace

1995: Variations on Happy Birthday

1999: American Journey

2003: Soundings

2007: Star Spangled Banner

2008: A Timeless Call

2012: Fanfare for Fenway

2012: Seven for Luck for soprano and orchestra

2013: For 'The President's Own'

2014: Star Spangled Banner

Chamber works

1951: Sonata for Piano

1997: Elegy for Cello and Piano

2001: Three Pieces for Solo Cello

2007: Duo Concertante for Violin and Viola

2009: Air and Simple Gifts for violin, cello, clarinet and piano

2011: Quartet La Jolla for violin, cello, clarinet and harp

2012: Rounds for solo guitar

2013: Conversations for solo piano

2014: Music for Brass for Brass Ensemble and Percussion

Discography