Marcus

New recording maybe? Anyway, new to YouTuibe and the montage was Williams' idea...
 
 
 

Great work to all involved!
 
I liked Frank's point near the end that Williams' old-fashioned style of scoring has not been derailed by the more sound-designy, athematic-type scores that have become increasingly prevalent since the 1990s. And Doug added that that's partially because Williams has found ways of including so many different styles of music in his scores rather than shelve what is considered "old-fashioned" and stick fairly exclusively to newer trends. It goes to show that one of Williams' most valuable assets is in his innovative synthesis of styles to form a distinctive voice, rather than an innovation in the raw sounds themselves as is sought more in current film and especially classical concert music.
 
And it was great to hear that many other active composers, conductors, performers cite Williams as one of their influences today. With the work that flourishes around Williams' music, it seems assured that it will continue to live on in many ways beyond the films themselves.

It's a prestigious spanish price named after the future queen of the country.
 
 
https://www.fpa.es/en/

I know some people who regard TreeSong as one of the best violin concertos of the 20th century, and would probably be grateful if his “non-film” music was played more often.

Hello, fellow JWfans. Obsessed with JW since 1994, member on this site since 2003, and have written my fair share of articles about the man for the LA Times, NPR, and elsewhere.
 
All of that as preamble to a request. This fall, assuming the world is still turning and the higher education system still exists, I'm going to be teaching a course at USC on... the music of John Williams. As you can imagine, I couldn't be more ecstatic. Under the shadow of the "John Williams Scoring Stage," across a path from the school where George Lucas attended, I'll get to wax on about the greatest composer of all time every week for a whole semester.
 
I know many of you have gathered biographical info about JW over the years—old news clippings, interviews, photos, etc.—and I would love to have anything and everything I can get my hands on as I prepare for this class. This will also just scratch an itch I have as a lifelong maniac for JW, but now I have a fancy professional reason as well.

Let me know if you have anything you'd be willing to share. Thanks in advance!

Now that the dust has settled a bit since December, I thought it might be nice to start a discussion on some of the highlights of The Rise of Skywalker's score. 
 
 
Technically, "A New Home" is Williams's apparent final word for this franchise (since the Force Theme statement that follows is repurposed from TFA...which was repurposed from ROTS...which was repurposed from ANH). And, thank goodness Williams is finally allowed some space to breathe musically, with no dialogue, cuts, or sound effects to distract us.
 
It's a subtle and quite desolate piece of music to my ears, and on first glance perhaps exceedingly simple. But over its brief 1:50 duration, it actually conveys a wealth of complex emotions and musical allusions amidst those pacing minor arpeggios. There's obvious and not-so-obvious nods to Rey's Theme, plus Jedi Steps & maybe the Imperial March, or even Across the Stars, with that time signature and the prominent rising minor sixth interval. I can't help but discern a dash of Shmi's Funeral from AOTC -- a hugely apposite reference, albeit unlikely an intentional one. It's at once a piece that summarizes a lot of the music of Star Wars, while still standing quite apart.
 
Despite my utter distaste for this scene from a narratival and character perspective, its hard for me to deny that it really lands on an emotional level. What do you all think?
 
 
 
 

Still better than Giacchino's kindergarten JW impersonations.

Everything in it, the new themes are gorgeous, little bit softer style than in(brilliant) TLJ, wonderful orchestrations and performance by the orchestra. Great closing for a great decade!! Love this man. 

Quintus, no. While the general orchestral Jerry stuff is done fine, that's not the point here. Every orchestra (well, not EVERY) can pull that off. The genious of the DNS is that it deals with Jerry's synths in a similar way to Goldsmith - a bit like what Leigh Phillips does. They sound identical. I do not know how old you are but I have had to put up with endless variations on Jerry's Total Recall theme (Silva even with fucking Ford Thaxton could not get it right) and that's not even a complex electronic component - it was a running joke in the 1990s and 2000s that no one could get even the opening synths for Total Recall correct. The fact that DNS can do Gremlins 2 - a much more complex synth score than Total Recall - is astonishing. It means we can get lost Jerry scores re-recorded.
Even Diago Navarro was unable to pull it off, and he is fucking great:
 
 
And whatever the case with the action stuff the awesomeness of Total Recall is this - and there is no way anyone can ever replicate this masterpiece. This is the Mona Lisa of film music:
 
 

One comment I have is that I prefer your Marcus Paus voice to your Marcus Paus channeling John Williams voice. 

This is....superb! I bought a copy off iTunes and convinced Mrs. Blume to do it do it too.
 
Congratulations Marcus. 

Greetings, all of you!
 
I wanted to share with you my first major feature score, written for André Øvredal's MORTAL.
 
The film will be out in theaters worldwide this year, and the soundtrack is already up on Spotify (and elsewhere eventually; CD will be available as of next week).
 
It's been a great privilege working on this, as André Øvredal is such an incredibly gifted director (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), and also deeply passionate about film music.
 
The score is performed by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Film Orchestra, and features solo work from Nils Økland (Hardanger Fiddle), Ditte Bræin (Soprano) and Kåre Nordstoga (Organ).
 
Hope you'll enjoy!
 
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ULpjMKTlWxQAZZyxvEJpV?si=TwRrf8y0SKOu3TSsRjyQCg

Another few items:
 
 
 
 

Seems it's also up on YouTube.
Here's a little teaser of sorts:
 
 

Greetings, all of you!
 
I wanted to share with you my first major feature score, written for André Øvredal's MORTAL.
 
The film will be out in theaters worldwide this year, and the soundtrack is already up on Spotify (and elsewhere eventually; CD will be available as of next week).
 
It's been a great privilege working on this, as André Øvredal is such an incredibly gifted director (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), and also deeply passionate about film music.
 
The score is performed by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Film Orchestra, and features solo work from Nils Økland (Hardanger Fiddle), Ditte Bræin (Soprano) and Kåre Nordstoga (Organ).
 
Hope you'll enjoy!
 
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ULpjMKTlWxQAZZyxvEJpV?si=TwRrf8y0SKOu3TSsRjyQCg

Greetings, all of you!
 
I wanted to share with you my first major feature score, written for André Øvredal's MORTAL.
 
The film will be out in theaters worldwide this year, and the soundtrack is already up on Spotify (and elsewhere eventually; CD will be available as of next week).
 
It's been a great privilege working on this, as André Øvredal is such an incredibly gifted director (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), and also deeply passionate about film music.
 
The score is performed by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Film Orchestra, and features solo work from Nils Økland (Hardanger Fiddle), Ditte Bræin (Soprano) and Kåre Nordstoga (Organ).
 
Hope you'll enjoy!
 
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ULpjMKTlWxQAZZyxvEJpV?si=TwRrf8y0SKOu3TSsRjyQCg

Greetings, all of you!
 
I wanted to share with you my first major feature score, written for André Øvredal's MORTAL.
 
The film will be out in theaters worldwide this year, and the soundtrack is already up on Spotify (and elsewhere eventually; CD will be available as of next week).
 
It's been a great privilege working on this, as André Øvredal is such an incredibly gifted director (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), and also deeply passionate about film music.
 
The score is performed by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Film Orchestra, and features solo work from Nils Økland (Hardanger Fiddle), Ditte Bræin (Soprano) and Kåre Nordstoga (Organ).
 
Hope you'll enjoy!
 
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ULpjMKTlWxQAZZyxvEJpV?si=TwRrf8y0SKOu3TSsRjyQCg

For over 30 years of the 88 that you have been around, I have have been enthralled by your music. I have listened to it for countless hours. I have formed many friendships because of it, and it has impacted my life in ways that are simply undeniable. 
 
Thank you John Williams
 
Thank you JWFAN.
 

Just sounds like a minor triad voiced for woodwinds to me. 🤷‍♂️

Thank you, Thor, for doing an amazing job hosting our show!
(I was the one who hired Thor, so I’m at least partially responsible for him having to skip the Vienna event, which was announced after our concert date was set. Sorry, Thor! ) 
Your presentations were excellent, with just the right length and a great mix of interesting, relevant information and fun facts. People from the audience have told me they would have liked to meet you after the concert to congratulate you on your job and tell you how your introductions really enhanced the concert experience for them. Kudos! 
Cool also that you joined us for the after-concert party. 
It was exhilarating to perform a full concert of my favorite composer’s music, and playing the never-before-performed-live (as far as we know) "Hassle in the Castle" and "Mambone" was a blast! Of course, we’re only non-professionals, so there were some rough spots – performing a two hour concert with some quite difficult symphonic music is a challenge!
The selections with the (really excellent) Skala Opera Choir were definitely some of the high points. They were located on two high balconies on each side of the hall, which gave the choir pieces a marvelous, majestic “surround” sound. As a 12 year-old in the audience commented on "Duel of the Fates":  "That was epic!"
Yes, we did both audio and video recordings of the event. I’ll check with the guys responsible for the recordings – hopefully we can post some of it here later.
 
 
Apart from the specially commissioned "Hassle in the Castle" and "Mambone" arrangements, everything we played were published, licensed versions, many from the Williams “Signature Edition” series for concert band. And we report what we play to the Norwegian performance rights organization (TONO).
 

OK, so while all of you were in Vienna for the John Williams concert on January 18th (and apparently had the time of your lives), I hosted a John Williams concert here in Oslo (well, actually a suburb of Oslo called Lørenskog). Most bizarre collision of events ever! Nils – who is a member here, and will no doubt chime in soon – plays clarinet in the Lørenskog band, and was more heavily involved in the event than I was; I was just a hired hand, really.
 
In any case, several hundred audience members showed up for this concert in the new Lørenskog House of Culture. The performers this evening were the Lørenskog band, accompanied by the Skala Opera Choir. Also featured were soloists from within the band, as well as an external soloist – violinst Aja Humm who has played with major orchestras, like the Oslo Philharmonic, and has her own string quartet called Fine Nordic Strings.
 
Although I was pissed to miss out on the Vienna concert and history being written down on the continent, this particular concert had one great advantage over that one – the world concert premieres of “Hassle in the Castle” from CHECKMATE and “Mambone” from BACHELOR FLAT! Both of these were newly arranged by composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen (perhaps most famous internationally for his AGE OF CONAN game scores). Everyone knows how much I obsess over early/obscure Williams and the chance to hear it live, so that was a treat. And then there were more classic selections, of course. That was also thrilling, especially the epic performance of “Duel of the Fates”.
 
There was apparently a video recording of the concert, but all I have at this moment is an audio file with medium sound quality (you can barely make out my own comments between the pieces…but that’s probably for the best, LOL!). I’m not sure I’m at liberty to post any of the audio clips here; Nils would have to approve first.
 
In any case, I just wanted to tell about this event, since it’s so rare to have the two aforementioned pieces performed live. Here’s the full concert programme:
 
1. Superman: The Movie: “The Planet Krypton”/”Superman March”
2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: “Harry’s Wondrous World”
3. Checkmate: “Hassle in the Castle”
4. Jurassic Park: “Suite”
5. Schindler’s List: “Jewish Town”/”Theme” (violin: Aja Humm)
6. Catch Me If You Can: “Selections” (saxophone: Øivind Hansen)
7. Saving Private Ryan: “Hymn to the Fallen” (w/Skala Opera Choir)
8. Indiana Jones: “Keeper of the Grail”/”The Raider’s March”
 
- INTERMISSION –
 
9. Star Wars Saga: Main Title / Yoda’s Theme / The Imperial March / Princess Leia’s Theme / The Throne Room/Finale
10. The Terminal: “Viktor’s Tale” (clarinet: Christin Kolden)
11. E.T.: “Adventures on Earth” (selections)
12. Bachelor Flat: “Mambone”
13. The Phantom Menace: “Duel of the Fates” (w/Skala Opera Choir)
14. Amistad: “Dry Your Tears, Afrika” (w/Skala Opera Choir)
15. Encore: “The Olympic Spirit”
 
I’m waiting for pictures, videos and (better) audio to come in, but meanwhile, here’s a brief video snippet of the rehearsal of Schindler’s List the day before the concert, as posted on Facebook:
 
 

I'm sure some of y'all have seen this before, but here's John being interviewed by the late Andre Previn in 1988.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj4sRhY-feY
 
 

For me one of the highlights was the WarHorse, that flute player was amazing and that brass choir in the end was just too much, cried like a baby!!! 

Breaking his own record as the most nominated living person, receiving his 52nd Oscar Nomination!
 
Congratulations Maestro!
 
 
The 5 nominees:
Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir)
Little Women (Alexandre Desplat)
Marriage Story (Randy Newman)
1917 (Thomas Newman)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (John Williams)

https://estonianworld.com/culture/arvo-part-was-the-worlds-second-most-performed-living-composer-in-2019/