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John Williams -- Boston Pops Laureate Conductor
In January 1980, John Williams was named nineteenth Conductor of the Boston
Pops Orchestra since its founding in 1885. He assumed the title of Boston Pops
Laureate Conductor following his retirement in December 1993 and currently
holds the title of Artist-in-Residence at Tanglewood. Mr. Williams was born in
New York and moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1948. There he attended
the University of California at Los Angeles and studied composition privately
with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After service in the Air Force, Mr. Williams
returned to New York to attend the Juilliard School, where he studied piano
with Madame Rosina Lhevinne. While in New York, he also worked as a jazz
pianist, both in clubs and on recordings. He later returned to Los Angeles,
where he began his career in film studios, working with such composers as
Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman. He went on to write music
for many television programs in the 1960s, winning two Emmy Awards for his
work.Composer of nearly eighty film scores and winner of five Oscars and sixteen Grammy awards, Williams's most recent scores include The Lost World (the sequel to Jurassic Park), Seven Years in Tibet, and Amistad.
In addition to his film music, Mr. Williams has written many concert pieces, including two symphonies, a bassoon concerto, a cello concerto, concertos for flute and violin, and concertos for clarinet and tuba. His most recent work, a trumpet concerto, was premiered by the Cleveland Orchestra and principal trumpet Michael Sachs in September 1996. In addition, Mr. Williams composed the NBC News theme, as well as "Liberty Fanfare," for the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, "We're Lookin' Good!," composed for the Special Olympics in celebration of the 1987 International Summer Games, and themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic games.
Many of John Williams's film scores have been released as recordings; the soundtrack album to Star Wars has sold more than four million copies, more than any non-pop album in recording history. Mr. Williams's highly acclaimed series of albums with the Boston Pops Orchestra began in 1980 on the Philips label, and then in 1990, Williams and the Boston Pops started making recordings exclusively for the Sony Classical label. To date, these have included Music of the Night (an album of contemporary and classic show tunes); I Love a Parade (a collection of favorite marches); The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration (featuring John Williams's music for Steven Spielberg's films); The Green Album (which includes "This Land Is Your Land," "Simple Gifts," and "Theme for Earth Day"); an album of music by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Jerome Kern entitled Unforgettable; It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, with vocalist Nancy Wilson; and Williams on Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores. The title track of his most recent recording, Summon the Heroes, was the official theme for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
John Williams led the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra on United States tours in 1985, 1989, and 1992, and on a tour of Japan in 1987, as well as taking the Boston Pops Orchestra on tours of Japan in 1990 and 1993. In addition to leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, Williams has appeared as guest conductor with a number of major orchestras, including the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with which he has appeared many times at the Hollywood Bowl. He holds honorary degrees from fourteen American universities, including Berklee College of Music in Boston, Boston College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Massachusetts at Boston.