John Williams at 90 – National Symphony Orchestra & Richard Kaufman

“Lights. Camera. Action! Take a front-row seat as we celebrate the music of one of cinema’s true giants, composer John Williams, in the month of his 90th birthday.

Acclaimed film music specialist Richard Kaufman takes to the podium for an evening of cinematic splendour and romance, thrills and spills, action and adventure with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Harking back to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Williams single-handedly returned the might and muscle of the symphony orchestra to the cinema screen in the late 1970s with his heart-stopping, pulse-quickening soundtracks for Jaws, Star Wars and Superman. Since then he has contributed anthemic scores to countless Silver Screen classics and led the charge of film music into the concert hall.

Williams’ music brims with poetry, passion and power. It’s there in the soaring fantasy of Superman’s Love Theme and March, the romantic spectacle of Sayuri’s Theme from Memoirs of a Geisha, the stirring, comic-book heroics of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the sweet child-like innocence of The BFG. And then there’s the lurking, creeping menace of the theme from Jaws.

For contrast, there is the bravura Summon the Heroes, composed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the brash Western bravado and wide expanses of The Cowboys Overture, and gentle, lyrical optimism of Minority Report.

No tribute to Williams would be complete without a visit to the magical world Hogwarts and the thrilling adventure of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and a trip to a galaxy far, far away. The blazing, brass-led Main Theme from Star Wars: A New Hope and the Forest Battle from Return of the Jedi are a thrilling display of a symphony orchestra at full-throttle. The Rise of Skywalker is a brilliant introduction to a new chapter of the saga confirming John Williams’s standing as a living legend.”