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John Williams - A Capitol Fourth this Thursday


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He'll be conducting on TV this Thursday http://www.pbs.org/capitolfourth/bios.html#john

I haven't seen a schedule posted though.

Here's what they have to say about him.

In a career spanning five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage, and he remains one of our nation’s most distinguished and contributive musical voices. He has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films, including all six “Star Wars” films, the first three “Harry Potter” films, “Superman,” “JFK,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Far and Away,” “The Accidental Tourist,” and “Home Alone.” His 40-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including “Schindler’s List,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jaws,” “Jurassic Park,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the “Indiana Jones” films, “Munich,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Adventures of Tintin,” “War Horse,” and “Lincoln.” His contributions to television music include scores for more than 200 television films for the groundbreaking, early anthology series “Alcoa Theatre,” “Kraft Television Theatre,” “Chrysler Theatre,” and “Playhouse 90” as well as themes for “NBC Nightly News” (“The Mission”), NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and the PBS arts showcase “Great Performances.” He also composed themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic Games, and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He has received five Academy Awards and forty-eight Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars. He has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), twenty-one Grammys, four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records. In 2003, he received the Olympic Order (the IOC’s highest honor) for his contributions to the Olympic movement. He received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in December of 2004. In 2009, Williams was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and he received the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the U.S. Government. In January 1980, Williams was named nineteenth music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding the legendary Arthur Fiedler. He currently holds the title of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor, which he assumed following his retirement in December 1993, after fourteen highly successful seasons. He also holds the title of Artist-in-Residence at Tanglewood. Williams has composed numerous works for the concert stage, among them two symphonies, and concertos commissioned by several of the world’s leading orchestras, including a cello concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a bassoon concerto for the New York Philharmonic, a trumpet concerto for The Cleveland Orchestra, and a horn concerto for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Williams composed and arranged “Air and Simple Gifts” especially for the first inaugural ceremony of President Barack Obama, and, in September 2009, the Boston Symphony premiered a new concerto for harp and orchestra entitled “On Willows and Birches.”

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Some of the usual errors in that bio. His involvement with PLAYHOUSE 90 is unconfirmed. It's called KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER and KRAFT MYSTERY THEATER, not KRAFT TELEVISION THEATER (although that may be a collective term for the Kraft shows). And he has only written ONE symphony, not two, the other being a SINFONIETTA.

Be that as it may, is this the event where they will be performing "For the President's Own"?

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From the CSO Facebook page:

Tune in to PBS' nationwide broadcast of “A Capitol Fourth,” Thur. July 4 at 7pm Central (check local listings). CSO Principal Trumpet Chris Martin (http://cso.org/About/Performers/Performer.aspx?id=3180) is the guest soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra in music from John Williams' score to the Oscar-winning film, Lincoln, for which the CSO recorded the soundtrack. It will be broadcast live from the West Lawn of The United States Capitol in Washington, D.C..
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it's Theatre.

Kraft Mystery Theater is a different series than Kraft Mystery Theatre from what I've understood.

hehe..

it's confusing indeed.

here's the series for which Williams wrote music:

http://ctva.biz/US/Anthology/KraftMysteryTheatre.htm

it says:

(Another series titled Kraft Mystery Theater aired on NBC from during the Summer of 1958)

and when you go to the page of that series:

http://ctva.biz/US/Anthology/KraftTelevisionTheatre_NBC_12_%28Summer1958%29.htm

it's again Kraft Mystery Theatre although it said otherwise, and then it says:

Another series titled Kraft Mystery Theater aired on NBC from during Summers of 1961, 1962, & 1963)

pointing to the first one! :mrgreen:

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it's Theatre.

Kraft Mystery Theater is a different series than Kraft Mystery Theatre from what I've understood.

hehe..

it's confusing indeed.

here's the series for which Williams wrote music:

http://ctva.biz/US/Anthology/KraftMysteryTheatre.htm

it says:

(Another series titled Kraft Mystery Theater aired on NBC from during the Summer of 1958)

and when you go to the page of that series:

http://ctva.biz/US/Anthology/KraftTelevisionTheatre_NBC_12_%28Summer1958%29.htm

it's again Kraft Mystery Theatre although it said otherwise, and then it says:

Another series titled Kraft Mystery Theater aired on NBC from during Summers of 1961, 1962, & 1963)

pointing to the first one! :mrgreen:

Yeah, you see what I mean! :)

Now there are two of them?!!!!

Yes, there are several incarnations of the Kraft shows, but I don't think the spelling is what delineates them. That's just...well, bad spelling. Making sense of the Kraft shows is a task in itself!

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I'm just hoping Vermont doesn't activate the Emergency Alert System to interrupt the concert for thunderstorm warnings like last year. :sarcasm:

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I lost track of time and forgot to tune in on time, but fortunately when I did, it was about a minute before Lincoln bit. Didn't miss anything before that, did I?

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Almost a new trumpet-concerto arrangement of "With Malice Towards None". It featured some of the new material from the 3rd movement of the concert suite, but it was edited to include several trumpet parts from "The Peterson House and Finale" on the soundtrack.

It is re-airing at 1:00 am and 2:30am tonight/this morning if you missed it again.

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Damn I have the wrong PBS channel in my cable package. no re-run at 1 AM

Classic Arts Showcase at 1 and 2:30 AM

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Surely this rendition of the themes from the original score will get an official CD/download release. It's really splendid.

JC

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Such a beautiful new arrangement of the score's materials and what splendid playing from Christopher Martin. He has an such a graceful and warm tone to his performance, which of course was apparent on the soundtrack album, but perhaps even more so here.

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Surely this rendition of the themes from the original score will get an official CD/download release.

JC

Don't get your hopes up...really

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