Omen II

A different interview with Richard Kaufman in The Herald gives some insights into working as a session musician on Williams's scores.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/film/rsno-conductor-richard-kaufman-on-working-with-john-williams-a-little-film-called-sta.1426260150

There is a very nice interview with conductor Richard Kaufman in the Daily Record, in which he talks about his work as a violinist on Johnny's scores for Jaws, Close Encounters and The Eiger Sanction. Apparently one of the violinists on Jaws was so scared she stopped playing and had to cover her eyes!
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/man-strike-fear-your-heart-5328976
I am also pleased to report that Richard Kaufman will be returning to Scotland next year for more John Williams concerts in Edinburgh on 5th February 2016 and Glasgow on 6th February 2016 with the RSNO.
http://www.rsno.org.uk/live/concert-listing/concert-information/?c_id=373&action=Read%20More

I was at the Edinburgh performance at Usher Hall. The conductor Richard Kaufman was quite informative when introducing pieces, such as the fact that his hands replaced those of Jack Nicholson during the cello scene in Witches of Eastwick, and he curiouy asked how many in the audience had actually seen Yes, Giorgio, to which only myself and one other person raised our hands. Midway was nice to hear live for the first time, as was Jim's New Life for which apparently Kaufman got JW's personal authorization to perform. Oddly enough, 1941 was selected as the encore. I'm not sure how many in the audience knew what it was.

I was listening to my Nigel Hess CD the other day. He has written so many fine TV themes, many of them for programmes that almost nobody remembers (Testament, The One Game, Classic Adventure, etc.). The pick of the bunch for me is his theme for the Cornish detective series Wycliffe, with its memorable cello solo played by Anthony Pleeth. I know I post it whenever this topic comes up, so sue me.

And here is my favourite TV theme by Christopher Gunning, The Big Battalions, even if it does owe quite a lot to Ennio Morricone's The Mission.

So many catchy theme tunes have been written for sports programmes, but surely the finest from this sceptred isle still has to be Ski Sunday, no? Here is Sam Fonteyn's classic played by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

That was my first thought when I read aj_vader's post, Maurizio! John Williams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms in a sold-out concert of his music at the Royal Albert Hall, anyone?
I will keep mid July to mid September free just in case.

The conductor Ludwig Wicki helmed 21st Century Orchestra from Lucerne Switzerland has been for years been performing various film scores (notably the Lord of the Rings Trilogy) live to the picture. This year they have several of these "Live" performances including Back to the Future, Ratatouille and Titanic. It seems they are also doing a 10 concert run of John Williams's Raiders of the Lost Ark in December 2015.
More info here!
P.S. My Deutsch is a bit rusty so I would appreciate if someone could verify this. The info page is a bit scant on the specifics but it looks like one of those Live! concerts the orchestra has been doing for some time now.

Williams was one of the pianists in the orchestra on the original soundtrack of Jerome Moross's classic western score for The Big Country.

This foul, archaic movie is obviously made by racists and misogynists who were hellbent on making King Kong resemble a black man lusting after a white woman.
It needs a trigger warning as modern audiences could potentially become traumatised by such backward garbage as this.

I adore England's unofficial anthem, way more than the official one.

National Champs OSU's version.

...because they voted "No".
The Scots usually use Flower of Scotland as their national anthem rather than Scotland the Brave.

I was lucky enough to see James Bernard in the audience at the first film music concert I ever attended. The Philharmonia Orchestra played his music from Taste the Blood of Dracula (which has a beautiful, very pastoral love theme) and he was acknowledged afterwards.
A guilty pleasure, if we are talking Hammer Dracula music, is Mike Vickers's Dracula A.D. 1972.

One night stand?

The Eiger Sanction by John Williams
Earthquake by John Williams

Inception has a lot of Braaaaaaaaaahms in it.

That's a mighty fine list, Karelm. More Newmans than you can shake a stick at.
Au contraire, Pilgrim, au contraire! Drunken stalking gains you bonus points.

Only if you opened it.

On this album you can find the absolutly best performance of the
"MAIN TITLE" and "PRINCESS LEIA´S THEME" (these Tracks are the only Star-Wars-Tracks on this CD).

It is a digital recording from 1978 (!)

My wee report:
In short succession, i saw two concerts, one by Desplat (Barbican, one by Elfman (Royal Albert Hall), that pretty well reflected their respective approach, one classical and refined, one much more 'rough' and unpolished but brawny and fun - you take your guess who's who, though i hasten to add that Elfman only presented his collabs with Tim Burton, so the RAH concert was not representative of his whole output.
Desplat gave a 45-pre-concert talk that was lead by the LSO principal flutist whose name was Gareth but whose last name i forgot. A bit too broad, as these things tend to be, it once at least threatened to become more interesting at the notion that Desplat and Kathryn Bigelow very carefully tried to apply an even tone to ZERO DARK THIRTY and how important Desplat found the political ballast that came with it. The rest was more the well-trodden stuff about how important it is to be a team player etc. Maybe these recent Sony leaks made me too hungry for some sweaty shop talk. Several directors (Stephen Frears?) also seemed to be in attendance.
The concert itself was successful, though i echo Karol's sentiment that the Potter suite sucked and easily was the low point of the evening (not surprisingly, as the scores are more concerned with staying out of the limelight than to form the drama). High point: THE GHOST WRITER suite that beefed up the minimalistic soundtrack to huge Herrmannesque proportions, and a generally well-thought out selection of the various presented works (BUTTON, PEARL EARRING, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, CHANEL, HERO TRÈS DISCRET, the here now much-maligned IMITATION GAME) though the brevity of some of the cues (TWILIGHT, GODZILLA, 2:30 and such) seemed to shortsell the potential of these scores. The impressionistic-yet-tangible flute piece that Desplat somehow found the time to write in 2013 (!?) was also a very good reminder that this composer has considerable chops as composer and can very well write a self-contained piece of music that doesn't has to rely on the crutch of a movie scene to work.
The level of LSO musicianship was high, as expected though the venue seems to have shrinked considerably since my last Williams concert. Desplat gave a spirited conducting and won the audience over at last with GHOST WRITER - the excitement was palpable and instead of the great-but-a-bit-too-behaved pieces like BENJAMIN BUTTON finally unleashed the kind of mystical spell that a showman like Williams can bestow upon an audience by raising the button for the STAR WARS overture - which for me was a sweet adventure because with stuff like STAR WARS or INDY i usually start counting notes or flubs out of sheer boredom but a piece i don't really know (i only have the main titles of GW) still is a great experience on stage. More on Elfman at a different spot...

I am not an expert on Desplat's music so cannot name all the individual cues that made up the various suites, but the programme was as follows:
The Twilight Saga: New Moon - Love Theme
Girl with a Pearl Earring - Suite
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Suite
Stephen Frears Suite (Philomena and The Queen)
Ghost Writer - Suite
The Grand Budapest Hotel
INTERVAL
Godzilla - Main Titles
The King's Speech - Suite
Pelleas et Melisande: Sinfonia Concertante for flute and orchestra
Birth - Suite
The Imitation Game
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Suite
ENCORES
Coco Avant Chanel
A Self-Made Hero
There was plenty of flute action going on (not of the "This one time at band camp" variety, I hasten to add), with four flautists / piccolo all doubling on alto flutes, bass flutes and recorders at various times in the evening.

This was broadcast along with quite a few others last week during the Detroit Symphony's webcast.
John Williams wishes Leonard Slatkin happy birthd:

BRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM!
As encores go, this was pretty spectacular (unless of course you are epileptic, in which case you would have been put into the recovery position at about the 5 minute mark).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwSjTbaUBjE