Regarded by many as the greatest American film composer of all time, 92-year-old John Williams has written some of the most memorable, popular, and critically acclaimed film scores over a 70 year career that shows no sign of slowing. Of the more than one hundred film scores to his credit, (including the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter series of films), 54 have been nominated for Academy Awards and five have won, making Williams second only to Walt Disney as the most Oscar-nominated person in Academy history.

After high school, Williams attended both UCLA and Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps, and taking private lessons from composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In 1951, Williams joined the U.S. Air Force, where he played piano and brass and conducted and arranged music for the U.S. Air Force Band. When his time with the Air Force was through, Williams entered the Juilliard School where he studied piano, set on becoming a concert pianist. After Juilliard, using the name “Johnny Williams,” Williams began his career in Hollywood as a piano player and session musician, performing on scores by such composers as Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, and Henry Mancini. He then became an arranger at Columbia and 20th Century-Fox studios, orchestrating for Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman. These orchestrating gigs led to composing jobs for television shows including Gilligan’s Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), and Land of the Giants (1968).

John Williams received his first Academy Award nomination in 1967 for Valley of the Dolls and his first Oscar win in 1971 for his adaptation of Jerry Bock’s score for the film version of Fiddler on the Roof. However, John Williams didn’t become a household name until 1975, when he collaborated for the second time with director Steven Spielberg on a little film called Jaws. Williams’ third, fourth, and fifth Oscar wins would be for 1977’s Star Wars, 1982’s E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and 1994’s Schindler’s List.

And lest you think of him as only a film score composer, John Williams has led numerous national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. He has also written numerous works for the concert stage including two symphonies, a cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and 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. Williams also composed the Liberty Fanfare for the Statue of Liberty’s rededication, theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, and “The Mission” theme for NBC’s Nightly News and Sunday Night Football. Williams’ most recent concert piece, the Violin Concerto No. 2, was written on commission for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who premiered the work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Williams at Tanglewood, on July 24, 2021.

Although in 2022 John Williams told the Associated Press that his work on the 2023 film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would probably be his last film score, he recently told The Times UK that he’s not ruling anything out when it comes to staying retired from composing. He went on to say, “Everything is possible. All is before us. Only our limitations are holding us back. Or to put it more simply: I like to keep an open mind.”

Let us hope that the 92-year-old composer still has a few more film scores yet to write.