John Towner Williams is best known as one of the greatest composers of music for the cinema. He has written scores for more than one hundred films, including some of the biggest all-time hits, such as the Star Wars series, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, and Schindler's List. But he has also written a substantial amount of concert music, including 15 concerti, more than 20 other orchestral works, and eight chamber pieces.
Williams was born in New York City in 1932. His father was a jazz percussionist, and Williams started taking piano lessons at a young age. In 1948 the family moved to Los Angeles, where he briefly studied at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He was drafted into the U.S. Air Force in 1951, where he played the piano and brass and conducted and arranged music for the air force band. Upon completion, he returned to New York City, where he worked as a jazz pianist and also attended Juilliard, and then the Eastman School of Music. Subsequently, he returned to Los Angeles, where he began working as an orchestrator at film studios.
Williams's style for his cinema music could be described as a form of neo-romanticism, influenced by the late 19th century's large-scale orchestral music, especially Wagner, including his concept of leitmotif. It is designed not so much as background music but more to enhance the emotions and actually become an essential part of the movie itself. Some critics point out that much of his movie music may be lacking in originality as far as style is concerned and that the melodies, although original, lack the development and finesse of the great nineteenth century romantic works. However, it is not the goal of Williams's film scores to be opera or concert music, and his works have been extremely successful as cinema music.
Williams's concert music is written in a very different style, namely similar to that of much other contemporary concert music, including the lack of discernible melodies for the most part, and it compares favorably to such works with regard to technique. However, it has come nowhere close to achieving a great popularity comparable to his cinema music among concert music audiences, and some have suggested that it would be even more obscure were it not for the great popularity of his cinema music.
One of his best received non-cinema works is his 1986 Liberty Fanfare, which was played for arriving guests at the Capitol for President Obama's second inauguration. His most recent concerto is his 2011 Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra.