John Towner Williams is an American composer, pianist, and conductor. He is considered to be one of the greatest film composers of all time.
For Disney, he is especially known for composing the scores for the Star Wars franchise and the Indiana Jones films, both collaborating with Lucasfilm. He also composed score for The BFG, the Steven Spielberg film produced by Disney.
Career[]
In a career spanning seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film soundtracks in cinematic history, including the Star Wars saga, Superman, Jaws, the Indiana Jones films, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the first two Home Alone films, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, Lincoln, Memoirs of a Geisha, and the first three Harry Potter films. He also composed music for TV series, such as Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Amazing Stories. He has had a long-time collaboration with director Steven Spielberg since Jaws in 1975, and George Lucas since the original Star Wars in 1977.
Williams also composed the music for all but five of Spielberg's major feature films (those exceptions being Duel, The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies, Ready Player One, and West Side Story). He did the score for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker (where he also had a cameo as a bartender named Oma Tres). His score for the Star Wars films can be heard in Disney Infinity 3.0, Rogue One, and Solo. He composed the theme "The Adventures of Han" for Solo.[1] Williams' son Joseph Williams performed the theme for Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears and was the singing voice for adult Simba in The Lion King.
On June 24, 2022, Williams announced that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would be his final soundtrack, and that he would subsequently retire from composing.[2] However on January 12, 2023, it was reported that Williams ultimately decided to reverse his decision to retire, with him stating “I can’t retire from music. A day without music is a mistake.”, and jokingly compared his passion to that of Steven Spielberg’s father, Arnold Spielberg, who also composed music until he was 100, by stating “I’ll stick around for awhile,” and “I've got ten years to go,”.[3]
Role[]
(Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)
