John Williams is one of America’s most famous, accomplished, and successful composers for film—and it’s almost easier to list the movies for which he has not composed the music than those for which he has. While Korngold was chastised for “giving into” Hollywood, Williams makes it clear that he is far from a frustrated classical composer. “I don't make a particular distinction between 'high art' and 'low art.' Music is there for everybody. It's a river we can all put our cups into and drink it and be sustained by it.”

And Williams’s music has sustained many all over the world. Over his five-decade career, He has composed music and served as music director for more than one hundred films. His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has been particularly inspiring, resulting in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, four Indiana Jones films, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Munich, Hook, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Empire of the Sun, The Adventures of TinTin and War Horse. Their latest collaboration, The BFG, was released on July 1, 2016. He has composed the scores for all seven Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman: The Movie, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, The Accidental Tourist, Home Alone, Nixon, The Patriot, Angela’s Ashes, Seven Years in Tibet, The Witches of Eastwick, Rosewood, Sleepers, Sabrina, Presumed Innocent, The Cowboys and The Reivers, among many others.

John Williams is valued as one of our country’s most distinguished musical voices, a fact that is reflected in his artistic partnerships and awards.  He has served as music director and laureate conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra and regularly works with the top orchestras in the country, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has received the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honor, the Olympic Order, numerous Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Golden Globe Awards. He has received five Academy Awards and 50 Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most-nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars. His most recent nomination was for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He also has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), 22 Grammys, four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records.