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https://theconversation.com/from-jaws-to-star-wars-to-harry-potter-john-williams-90-today-is-our-greatest-living-composer-176245>
"John Williams, the man who changed the way we hear the movies, turns 90 today.
As the key Hollywood composer during the blockbuster era of the 1970s and
1980s, Williams had an astronomical career alongside the likes of filmmakers
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
With his music for their movies, Williams revived the romantic orchestral sound
of Hollywood’s Golden Age – the sound pioneered by composers Erich Wolfgang
Korngold and Max Steiner at the dawn of the talkies – and reinvented it for a
new era.
“John Williams has been the single most significant contributor to my success
as a filmmaker,” said Spielberg in 2012.
On the numbers alone, Williams has had a career like no other. If you were
going to the movies between 1970 and 1990, every second year would have had a
number one box office hit with music by Williams.
This prolific era saw Williams write music for
Jaws,
Star Wars,
Indiana
Jones,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Superman and
E.T. The Extra
Terrestrial – an abundant run by any standard.
Williams today holds 52 Academy Award nominations (and five wins), the most
nominations of any living human and second in history only to Walt Disney.
Williams can add to that 72 Grammy Award nominations (and 25 wins), 16 BAFTA
nominations (seven wins) and six Emmy nominations (three wins).
He has written music for the Olympics (in 1984, 1988, 1996 and the 2002 Winter
Olympics), for a Presidential inauguration (for Barack Obama in 2009) and for
the nightly news (NBC – also used by Channel Seven in Australia).
When adjusted for inflation, one-fifth of the top 100 films at the North
American box office have music by Williams."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
