The Life and Legend of John Williams w/ Author Tim Greiving

John Williams has scored over 100 films, including Jaws, nine Star Wars movies, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, five Indiana Jones movies, E.T., Born on the Fourth of July, Home Alone, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, three Harry Potter movies, and Fiddler on the Roof. Best known for his collaborations with Spielberg and Lucas, Williams also worked with Robert Altman, Norman Jewison, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, John Singleton, and Oliver Stone. He has won five Oscars, having been nominated a whopping 54 times. Williams is the only film composer to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. He composed his first film score in 1958, and his newest one, at age 94, comes out this summer (Disclosure Day).

Those facts, staggering as they are, do not fully capture the breadth and depth of Williams's impact. Williams elevated the visibility of film scoring beyond cinephiles. His music is permanently ingrained in American culture, and in the psyche of entire generations. It expresses our happiness and hope; our sadness and our fears.

We are honored to be joined by Tim Greiving, author of John Williams: A Composer's Life (Oxford University Press), the first-ever biography of the legendary composer. Greiving spent years researching and writing this excellent book, which included unprecedented access to Williams himself.

Tim Greiving is an arts journalist and historian in Los Angeles who specializes in film music; he regularly writes for the Los Angeles Times, and has contributed to NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Criterion, and many other outlets. He has written program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Albert Hall, and liner notes for more than a hundred soundtrack albums. Find him at timgreiving.com.