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John Towner Williams moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1948. He attended UCLA and studied composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He joined the Air Force and, after his service, returned to New York to study at the Juilliard School with the renowned Rosina Lhevinne. Williams cut his teeth as a jazz pianist in Manhattan before returning to Los Angeles, where he began working in films and television. He was a rehearsal pianist for South Pacific, an arranger of albums by artists as diverse as Doris Day and Mahalia Jackson, and a musical assistant and orchestrator for masters of film music including Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann. He worked on television, starting with the "Today Show" and "General Electric Theater," lavishing his talent on TV gems through the years including "The Virginian," "Kraft Summer Music Hall," "Lost in Space," "Heidi" and, perhaps most unforgettably, in the touching, rousing 1984 Olympic Fanfare that has become an inextricable part of the fabric of Olympic dreams.
He learned from the best and his music has been at least as bright. The sounds of George Gershwin, of Aaron Copland, of Leonard Bernstein all celebrate and define the American experience in music. John Williams, joyfully, is carrying that celebration into the 21st Century.
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