The Spokane Symphony dedicates its second Pops concert to John Williams’ film music | Arts & Culture | Spokane | The Pacific Northwest Inlander
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Everyone knows at least one John Williams’ tune.
The composer John Williams could have retired at age 50 and still left an immense musical legacy. By that point, he had scored films like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET the Extra-Terrestrial — each so memorable that they transcended the silver screen. You don’t need to have even seen Jaws to recognize the threat contained in the alternating two-note pattern of its theme.
Clearly, Williams didn’t stop there. He continued working and celebrating birthdays. Now in his 90th year, he’s since added memorable and award-winning film scores like Harry Potter, Home Alone, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Memoirs of a Geisha, Angela’s Ashes and Saving Private Ryan to that already impressive résumé.
Fresh off a Halloween-themed concert featuring the music of Harry Potter, the Spokane Symphony is preparing to celebrate Williams with a Pops concert dedicated solely to the composer’s vast and varied body of cinematic work.
“If you stop somebody on the street and ask them to sing a tune from Star Wars or Jaws or Jurassic Park, chances are that the average person could hum some John Williams. There really aren’t any other composers living today that I can think of that have that scope of influence in our popular culture,” says Amanda Howard-Phillips, the orchestra’s principal second violinist.
That “popular” aspect can occasionally be a sticking point for some classical musicians, just as lovers of popular music are sometimes wont to assume that “classical” is aimed at a different kind of listener. Howard-Phillips admits that there was a time when she herself might have dismissed Williams as “movie music.” Classical lite, in other words, not meant to be taken seriously.
“As I’ve aged, I’ve gotten so much more of an appreciation for his craft, for what a genius he is. Now that I’ve played his music a whole bunch in different orchestras that I’ve played in, as well as here in the Spokane Symphony, I can appreciate what great music it is and just how much fun it is to play,” she says.
Not that it’s any measure of his skill as a composer, but Williams can also be tough to play.
“A lot of his music is very difficult,” says Julia Pyke, a recent graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the orchestra’s new principal flutist. “In the newest version of the classic flute excerpt book by Jeanne Baxtresser, it includes several excerpts from the Harry Potter score. And, actually, [those pieces] are getting asked at auditions more and more these days, so it’s becoming part of the standard repertoire in that way.”
Howard-Phillips points to “Hedwig’s Theme” from the Harry Potter series as a deceptively pleasant piece of music that’s devilishly tricky for her fellow string players.
“It starts out with celeste, the keyboard instrument that sounds like ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies’ from The Nutcracker. Then the violins enter, and it’s this sweeping, running figure — fast, fast notes up and down the scale, and it’s hard as heck. It should sound effortless and fleeting, but it’s wickedly difficult to make that sound easy. Yet that challenge is what also makes it fun,” she says.
Another thing that makes Williams’ film music so potent is the way it taps into nostalgia. Some of that stems from its original medium. For anyone who recalls watching ET, regardless of whether that happened to be on its initial theatrical release in 1982 or decades later on a streaming service, the feeling of exhilaration when the kids’ bikes fly is invariably linked to both the onscreen action and the music that accompanies it. The same goes for Darth Vader’s appearance in Star Wars or when Indiana Jones pulls off another daring escape.
But Williams, as a further testament to his talent, has also proven himself adept at tickling that particular nerve.
“There was an element of nostalgia baked into [his music] by design,” Howard-Phillips says. “He was influenced by Wagner and the idea of the leitmotif, this distinctive musical melody that goes with each character and evolves and changes as the story progresses. It really heightens the emotion and your connection with the characters.”
“I’m super excited to dive into so many of his film scores,” Pyke says. “This is my first real orchestral experience, and as I don’t have too much experience performing Williams’ compositions, I’m really excited to see what it’s like sitting behind the stand and playing all these. Especially the Star Wars.”
Howard-Phillips says that’s exactly how Williams can become a “gateway drug” — she chuckles at the term — to the wider classical music repertoire.
“If people listen to the Star Wars theme, then I could see how they might be tempted to listen to Holst’s The Planets or Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Good music has the power to move people emotionally, to make you excited, to make you root for the hero and to be scared of the bad guy,” she says.
“It just goes to show that good music is good music.” ♦
Spokane Symphony Pops 2: John Williams’ 90th Birthday • Sat, Nov. 5 at 7:30 pm • $47-$100 • Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • spokeanesymphony.org • 509-624-1200