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I work in legacy fundraising/development in the orchestra sector (Basically... being in peoples last wills). A "bequest" is a portion of the last will that is conditional upon death. As he has likely had a will for some time, he probably gave them the library a long time ago, but simply hasn't announced until they gave him this award. I'm sure their development department wanted to announce it as part of the event to make sure it got press. But basically, they won't get it until he passes. It's important to save space for it though and be prepared; especially with the volume of work he has. It probably exceeds many of the great european composers in output and I'm expecting a ton of unreleased compositions he wrote out of boredom or scrapped projects. As Williams is quite the philanthropist, I'm not surprised, but also also very pleased that he recognizes that his works should be preserved properly. They'll likely be accessible by everyone barring any copyrights - though he may have released all the rights he owns in the bequest as well; which would be unprecedented. It's likely that his estate will continue collecting royalties for decades. Julliard will have the original manuscripts to study though and will hopefully scan most of them before they start degrading (I imagine some are in poor shape already) and any one who has access to any university library should be able to access. That's how most are done. The original manuscripts are often less controlled than the final stuff owned by Hal Leonard, etc. The hard part is cataloging them all, which will take a number of years, but Williams is said to be meticulously organized, so that should make things easier.

http://slippedisc.com/2018/03/just-in-john-williams-leaves-all-his-scores-to-juilliard/

Hopefully next he'll donate all his unreleased music to the John Williams Fan Network.

I like to imagine this will be every composition professor reading the JW collection...

No other living composer could have written a cue like Escape or The Spark.

How fabulous is this! I think he is donating his originals, he will keep the copies of all of them in his own library. I mean they are on paper, they can be scanned so he can have copies Also for all those idiots writing shit about him. Please! They can be as bitchy as they like. The guy has made a shit ton of money and done so doing what he loves. And BTW, when I was at Trinity College of Music in London studying post grad composition, they complained not only about Williams, but about Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, etc etc. Anyone who wasn't innovative or ahead of their time. I got sent out of the class one time because I argues the professor to death. He had "written" a piece called musical chairs in which any number of players would sit in a circle. One person would play something randomly and you would see how it changes as it goes around the players. So I said "I'm sorry, you want to complain about Tchaikovsky and Williams when you didn't even write a note and you call this a composition? You can't even write a toenail's worth of music of any of the composers you all like to complain about, Get a life!" It's all jealousy in the end. This man will be forever in the history books while many of his contemporaries, and pretty much all of the people who complain about him will be forgotten.

The comments on that article are cancer. I can't stand snobs who feel the need to bring out the age-old "copying" accusation every time they see Williams' name mentioned.

When i Googled coprophilia i got a picture of the Pope!

I really like Luke's Exile Theme now. When I first heard it I kept expecting to lead to something else - it seems a lot like a bridge section he might use in a concert arrangement. But I've been doing a bit of playing around with it on the piano and I keep coming back to it. The similarities with the opening 7-note figure of Rey's Theme are unmistakable; it's like he was foreshadowing this theme with her's and tapping into the mythology of the Jedi while doing so. I dig it.

Wonderfully classy move from Mr. Williams.

If anyone's curious, I did a little feature with the local Boston NPR station on The Last Jedi score and Star Wars music in general. (I actually thought I was going to be talking about all 5 Oscar Nominees, but they just wanted me to talk about SW! No problem there). They cut down about 100 minutes of me talking about the score to 13 minutes of highlights, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. And forgive me, purists, for changing one note in the Luke & Leia theme as it appears in The Spark from Db to C! I'm too used to the original (correct, I dare say ) structure of the melody at that point which uses the leading tone instead of tonic pitch. Oh well... http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/03/02/music-star-wars

New music !

De Splat.

"Okay guys here's the recording sessions for every film I've ever composed in lossless 192khz 24-bit FLAC!"

No thread of this topic would be complete without Horner!! Though I love all that have already been suggested, I will also add (it gets to flight): Rocketeer Flying Circus: Avatar Jakes First Flight A little closer to reality:

Here's the original source with the full article: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/John-Williams-to-Bequeath-Concert-and-Film-Scores-to-Juilliard-20180306

A classic and monumental move by Williams. The vast wealth of technique, approach and genius now available to students, conductors and aspiring composers is fantastic and historic. I sort of expected him to do something like this eventually. It happening now is a sobering reminder that we must relish what he is still able to contribute musically while we can.

John Williams' personality makes me want to cry at how much I adore him.

Nobody fucks with the Richard.

Mark it zero, Richard.

I don't think so. I just think The Force Awakens is a better packaged movie: its much better paced (the major issue with The Last Jedi) and it has better production value. While its very linear, characters like Finn and Han don't feel shortchanged: the film manages to balance all three of them, which is more than I can say for The Last Jedi; Also, while Hux, Snoke and Phasma are empty shells in both, at least they aren't so over-the-top in The Force Awakens, so I would say the acting is better, too. Also, JJ's humor is much more organic (if far too abundant) to the story, and he doesn't feel like he's lacking restraint in the way Rian Johnson does: I know originally Abrams planned another subplot in the finale involving a chase over the snowy surface of Starkiller Base, but in the end he had the nous to cut it, which is more than can be said to a lot of stuff in The Last Jedi. I don't bring him up a lot, but Chris Stuckmann knows his cinema, and he does agree with me: Revenge of the Sith is far less well packaged than either of the two, but I just appreciate the audacity of Lucas to present a Star Wars film that is an outright tragedy. Its the only one that ends with the bad guys being triumphant, and for that to happen in the last film in a trilogy is very unusual

Really? Vader is the one who killed Luke’s father, was Obi Wan’s pupil and survives the Battle of Yavin. He was clearly meant for more than just being ‘the chief stormtrooper’.

At some point, artists aren't hungry anymore.

Talks about PTA without even mentioning There Will Be Blood... wow!

So SW is already old and tired, but Marvel isn't? Maybe Star Wars just isn't that good.

If Tadlow can handle BEN-HUR, EL CID, and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, I'm sure that they could handle RAMBO III. LIONHEART would be a great Tadlow project, but, of course, DRACULA would be better

In that case; somewhere where they sell OOP CDs. I guess

Whenever i deny myself big chunk of Toblerone cake i go for this instead. The effect is the same except for the missing stomach cramps.

Leaving it with an exclusive private corporation? Whatever. Go look at what Aaron Copland left at the Library of Congress, accessible to any peasant on the planet now that it’s being digitized.

His interpretations are a lot more German inspired. I love that he encourages the brass to be so much more legato than Williams would probably recommend. The Cincinnati Brass has always had quite a reputation. Aaron Copeland wrote "Fanfare for the Common Man" for our brass section and they've sort of tried to keep the sound similar over the years in their choices of players. The percussion overplaying and bright sound is sort of because of the hall. It doesn't reverberate very well and gives you very little feedback; sort of like an old European hall. Thus the percussion would sometimes overplay and not really be aware. It will never sound like most Williams scores given that it's a hall, not a sound stage like he does most of his scores. Kunzel was a perfectionist though and you can tell from his recordings... He never lets a bad take make it to the final record. Love that SpaceCamp recording as well!

Ebay!

In that case...apologies, etc. Ps, snowflakes suck!

Why not? He's 86 years old, for crying out loud, and he's far nearer to the end of his life, than he is to the beginning. Has JWfan become a web site for snowflakes? How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say? Now you have something new, to think about. Carry on.

Dunkirk to Enterprise.

It is the same "sign" as being 86 years old.

Looks like something I might have built with my space Legos when I was six.

That. That, and nothing but that.

No, and nor should he. The reason JW's music is so hacked up in these films is because he insists on being involved so early in the process due to his age, well before the final edit is decided on. He has admitted that he can't pull the same 12 hour work days he used to, so completing a score in a 4-12 week period after the picture has been locked off is simply not possible for him anymore. That's why he didn't do the last Potter film, and it's probably why he pulled out of Ready Player One. It's wonderful that he's managed to come up with a compromise that still lets him write for these films, but the directors shouldn't be expected to sacrifice the best possible edit of their film just to keep JW's music whole. He is but one part of the film.

Indeed. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jaws, Raging Bull, Ran, Mulholland Drive and There Will Be Blood would be better examples of this than the rather dull Cameron or Lucas films.

Thank you, I don't need more evidence, you can now stop compensating.

Well, as JWFan it is our duty to recommend any good starting point to a wanna-be fan. So we must know what are the best compilations.... they usually are the entry point to someone who wants to discover an artist. Don't say "I for one already own every single individual JW release", rather say "What can I do for all the earth population becomes a JWfan like me".

Well, like I wrote in another thread, this 2-CD compilation is maybe STILL the greatest one on the market... but it stops in 1999... So I suggested a third CD, covering 2001 to 2017 (themes/concert suites to stay in the same idea): 01 Sound the Bells! 02 Hedwig's Theme from HP & The Sorcerer's Stone 03 Escapades from Catch Me if You Can: 1st movement (Spielberg/Williams III) 04 Across the Stars from AOTC 05 Harry's Wondrous World from HP & The Sorcerer's Stone 06 Battle of Heroes from ROTS 07 Sayuri's Theme & End Credits from Memoirs of a Geisha 08 Dartmoor 1912 from "War Horse" (Spielberg/Williams III) 09 With Malice Toward None (Spielberg/Williams III) 10 The Adventures of Mutt (Spielberg/Williams III) 11 The Duel from Tintin (Spielberg/Williams III) 12 The BFG Suite (Spielberg/Williams III) 13 The Jedi Steps and Finale from The Force Awakens 14 The Rebellion is Reborn (from The Last Jedi)

It was only the highest grossing film of the year by a small margin instead of a huge one! That's what failure looks like!

It earned well over a billion! I love how people are trying to convince the world that TLJ was a flop for Disney.

"Williams has composed the scores to all eight Star Wars theme songs"

Yes, this is definitely true, because...

That's some good stuff in there! Marianelli seemed quite responsive. My favourite parts:

Ron Jones, Walter Murphy, or John Williams.