John Williams, who was born in New York on February 8, 1932, began piano lessons at the age of eight. When he was in the US Air Force, he composed orchestrations for and conducted armed forces bands, and after his discharge, he studied at Juilliard. After that, he went to UCLA to study composition.
After working as a studio pianist, John Williams began composing and arranging for network television. He began his career scoring feature films after recording with André Previn. Williams rose to prominence as a popular film composer with a diverse palette after some early work scoring comedies and well-known disaster films.
His collaborations with Steven Spielberg, which began with The Sugarland Express in 1974, and with George Lucas, which resulted in the Star Wars scores and the Indiana Jones films, are notable. He has composed music for children’s films such as Home Alone, Hook, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in addition to poignant and epic works for adults.
John Williams has received 30 Grammy nominations, including nominations for two different films in each of the last five years. He has won ten of them. Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Memoirs of a Geisha are among the films for which he has received awards. Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., and Memoirs of a Geisha all earned him Golden Globe nominations.
He won Oscars for his work on Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., and Schindler’s List, among others, with 45 nominations. In addition, for his work on Monsignor, John Williams was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Musical Score in 1983, but did not win.
John Williams’ other accomplishments include the composition of Olympic fanfares and concert works. He conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993, following Arthur Fiedler’s footsteps.