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Did anyone here actually watch Evening at Pops on PBS when Williams conducted?


King Mark

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I remember stumbling upon it a few times on PBS and he played Hymn to New England  once. 

 

As a JWfan I feel like I should have watched it more often but I was wondering why he never played his own film music

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Considering how much of it was produced, I'm surprised that the series isn't still in syndication, especially with the specialty arts channels that have come about in recent years. That fact that we don't see the old episodes broadcast anymore makes me suspect (and I hope I'm wrong) that original masters of the show have been lost or destroyed. Personally I've been looking for 10 years for the episode where JW conducts the suite from the Phantom Menace.

Last year we found out that WGBH has an online 'vault' or archive content, where some miscellaneous content is accessible. I did write them an email about certain episodes of EAP, but I was given a spiel about uncertainty of the rights to the episodes.

Even at Pops is the best show I've ever seen as far as television coverage for orchestral performances - as someone who works in film and television production, I'm in constant admiration of the shows consistently high technical production, which allows the viewers to appreciate the full orchestra, and (to me particularly) getting to see John Williams as a conductor - I could watch him conduct music all day.

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No, I didn't get properly interested in film music and John Williams untill the early 90s. Plus I live in Norway without access to the channels in question. So kinda difficult. But I've seen several of the shows in later years, of course. I think I have a DVD-R somewhere with a handful of them.

 

But I wish there were a resource somewhere that listed ALL the "Evening at Pops" episodes with Williams, just for overview's sake. Does anyone have any idea? Am I right to assume these shows aired some 3-4 times a year in the interim we're talking about (from 1980 to 1995, plus later episodes with JW guest appearing)?

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Yes, that’s where I heard / saw the premier of Yoda’s Theme and the Imperial March. 

 

I think I have have one of the Christmas concerts recorded on vhs somewhere, but that may have been one of the major networks.

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On 9/28/2019 at 5:29 AM, Thor said:

Am I right to assume these shows aired some 3-4 times a year in the interim we're talking about (from 1980 to 1995, plus later episodes with JW guest appearing)?

 wasn't it on every week?

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I think there may have been two or three per season (Pops season that is, May-July).  I remember going to a concert back in the late 90s that was being recorded for TV.... I don't remember the exact program, but I do remember at one point they performed music to a video montage of Busby Berkeley films, and they had to play it two or three times to get it right.  It sounded right to us in the audience, but after a moment or two either Williams or Lockhart (I can't remember who was the conductor, but I think it was Williams) would be on the phone at the podium, and then they would cue it up again.

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11 hours ago, Thor said:

Every WEEK? So, like, 52 episodes per year, for 15 years +? There are, like, 780-800 "Evening at Pops" episodes out there featuring John Williams?

 

You know better Thor. KM probably saw repeats a lot. 

 

Also, TV shows like this usually don't run for 52 weeks a year. 

The Boston Pops is a summer orchestra anyway.

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All this just goes to show how we really need a database of sorts, outlining all these things. I've found no pertinent info by googling around either; a lot is lacking on Wikipedia, IMDB etc.

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5 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

@Miguel Andrade would know. I'm sure he has every episode on tape.

 

I wish...

 

The Pops season starts on late Spring, so yes, Williams conducting schedule with the Pops would start around May and last until the orchestra moves to Tanglewood for the Summer.

I think they usually taped something up to six shows a season, which would mean something like 80 Williams shows at best. 

Note that not only PBS would tape and broadcast Pops shows. A&E did a few in the early 90's and the July 4th concert which is still broadcast today, wasn't on PBS, but rather on a local Boston channel, I think. Also, occasionally, other conductors other than Williams would record a show.

 

On 9/28/2019 at 3:32 AM, King Mark said:

I remember stumbling upon it a few times on PBS and he played Hymn to New England  once. 

 

As a JWfan I feel like I should have watched it more often but I was wondering why he never played his own film music

 

Really? I have a number of those concerts featuring Williams conducting his own film music!

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I remember the orchestral version of "Sound the Bells" was used as the music underneath the announcer as he told us who would be performing.  Often, it was the highlight of the week trying to hear just a few precious clean seconds of non-film music from Williams!  Over the years, Williams did perform quite a bit of his music on the show.  I remember an Olympics-themed episode in '96 with "Summon the Heroes" (and "Javelin").  I think Williams even gave Randy Newman his first shot at conducting publicly with the Pops one time (though I could be mis-remembering this).  And there was a pre-recorded conversation between the two where Newman admitted to voting for "Home Alone" for the Oscar.  Anyone recall this?

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4 hours ago, TJH132 said:

And there was a pre-recorded conversation between the two where Newman admitted to voting for "Home Alone" for the Oscar. 


Wait a second, Randy was nominated for Avalon that year.  So if you’re an academy member you can still vote for a category you yourself are nominated in?  Weird, I’d never really thought about it before.

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4 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

So if you’re an academy member you can still vote for a category you yourself are nominated in?  Weird, I’d never really thought about it before.

 

I read somewhere that, on the year that Zimmer won his Oscar for The Lion King, he voted for Thomas Newman's Shawshank Redemption.

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4 hours ago, Edmilson said:

 

I read somewhere that, on the year that Zimmer won his Oscar for The Lion King, he voted for Thomas Newman's Shawshank Redemption.

 better make sure you don;t lose by 1 vote

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