“After more than six decades of making bicycles soar, sending panicked swimmers to the shore and other spellbinding close encounters, John Williams is putting the final notes on what may be his last film score,” Indiana Jones 5, writes Jake Coyle in Thursday’s (6/23) Associated Press. “Williams, who turned 90 in February, … is devoting himself to composing concert music, including a piano concerto he’s writing for Emanuel Ax. This spring, Williams and cellist Yo-Yo Ma released the album ‘A Gathering of Friends,’ recorded with the New York Philharmonic, [guitarist] Pablo Sáinz-Villegas and [Boston Symphony Orchestra harpist] Jessica Zhou…. Turning 90 … has … ‘given me the ability to breathe, the ability to live and understand that there’s more to corporal life,’ Williams says…. Williams, who led the Boston Pops from 1980 to 1993, has conducted the Berlin, Vienna and New York philharmonics, among others. In the world’s elite orchestras, Williams’ compositions have passed into canon…. [Film director Steven] Spielberg once described his five-note ‘Communication Motif’ from ‘Close Encounters’ as ‘a doorbell.’ ‘Simple little themes that speak clearly and without obfuscation are very hard to find and very hard to do,’ says Williams.”
Change font size
