There are at least four artists with this name: (1) John Towner Williams (film score composer) (2) John Christopher Williams (classical guitarist) (3) John Williams (Irish musician) (4) John Williams (blues/jazz guitarist) (5) John Knowles Williams (1) John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is one of the most widely recognized composers of film scores. As of 2006, he has received forty-five music-related Academy Award nominations, an accomplishment surpassed only by Walt Disney. Early scores and compositions are credited as Johnny Williams. Williams is best known for heroic, rousing themes in adventure and fantasy films. This includes some of the highest grossing films of all time, such as the Star Wars movies, the Superman movies, Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and the first three Harry Potter movies. His richly thematic and highly popular 1977 score to the first Star Wars film was selected by the American Film Institute as the greatest American movie score of all time. Five of his film scores won Oscars. His long career has also included many sensitive dramatic scores (such as Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Munich) and quirky character studies (like Catch Me If You Can, the theme for which makes extensive use of jazz, perhaps in homage to Mancini's famous music for The Pink Panther). Also noteworthy are his recent collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman on the score for Memoirs of a Geisha, as well as Williams' other more experimental concert works. Williams has composed the scores for every Steven Spielberg movie, with the exception of The Color Purple (scored by co-producer Quincy Jones) and Duel (Spielberg's first feature film). While skilled in a variety of twentieth-century compositional idioms, his most familiar style may be described as a form of neo-romanticism, influenced by his predecessors and their use of large-scale orchestral music. Korngold (and other Hollywood Golden Age composers), is clearly evident in many of Williams' most famous works. Anyone who has watched the Olympics on television has heard Williams' "Olympic Fanfare and Theme," parts of which (especially the last fifteen seconds of the fanfare) receive extensive playtime every four years. Willi
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