2019 release. The prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, and Deutsche Grammophon, the world's leading classical music label, extend their long history of making music together. This release is a tribute to multi-award-winning film composer John Williams.
John Williams: Flute Concerto – Bernard Herrmann Souvenirs d
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Jul 24, 2026
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Darrell Ang and Joshua Tan, presents a compelling programme that explores the rich and often unexpected dialogue between film and concert music, featuring works by John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and Hugo Friedhofer. Once considered distinct spheres, these worlds are brought together through compositions that reveal the breadth and depth of three composers whose artistry extends far beyond the screen. At the centre of the programme is Williams' Concerto for Solo Flute, Strings and Percussion (starring Singapore Symphony Principal Flutist Jin Ta), a work of striking imagination and expressive range, complemented by his Essay for Strings (1965), an early yet already assured statement of his concert voice. Alongside these works, Herrmann's Souvenirs de Voyage for clarinet quintet, here heard in the late Hans Sørensen's adaptation for clarinet and string orchestra, receives it's world premiere recording with clarinettist Ma Yue, offering a vivid example of the composer's distinctive harmonic language in a concert setting. Friedhofer's Suite for 5 Woodwinds, also presented in a world premiere recording, further enriches the programme with it's inventive textures and stylistic range. Together, these works highlight a shared spirit of exploration, brought to life with clarity and refinement by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a release that continues it's distinguished collaboration with PENTATONE.
Legendary composer for stage and screen John Williams has admired the United States Marine Band, the "President's Own," since childhood - and in recent decades, the maestro and ensemble's mutual admiration has deepened amidst a series of collaborations marking the group's major anniversaries. The culmination of this twenty-year relationship was Williams' return to conduct the band's 225th anniversary gala concert in July 2023, along with the release of this 2026 album, John Williams and 'The President's Own,' Vol. 3. Completing a trilogy of albums issued by Naxos of America, this live recording brings the outstanding virtuosity, good cheer, and moving musicianship of that 2023 Kennedy Center concert to the world.
John Williams for Band / Bands of the United States Armed Forces
Altissimo
CD
$18.99May 16, 2016
John Williams for Band is performed and recorded by the Bands of the United States Armed Forces. Selections include “Sounds the Bells,” “The Cowboys Overture,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Music from The Patriot,” “Yoda’s Theme & Main Theme” from the Star Wars Trilogy, “Adventures on Earth,” from E.T. and many more rousing works.
Original score composed by John Williams. Producers include: John Williams. Principally recorded at Sony Pictures Scoring Stage, Culver City, California. Includes liner notes by Alan Parker. ANGELA'S ASHES was nominated for the 1999 Academy Awards For Best Original Score. "Theme From Angela's Ashes" won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition.
John Williams and "The President's Own", Vol. 1 & 2
Naxos
CD
$29.99Jun 19, 2026
In 2002, anticipating the 205th anniversary year of "The President's Own" Marine Band, the then-Directors of this beloved ensemble invited John Williams to conduct a gala concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The legendary American composer graciously accepted, noting that his own father, a percussionist, had taught his son to love and respect the Marine Band from a young age. Williams first appeared with the band on July 12, 2003, one day after the band's official 205th birthday, thus inaugurating a long collaboration sustained by mutual respect and admiration. Williams would return to the Kennedy Center for another concert, this time in celebration of the band's 210th anniversary, in 2008. Several of his most enduring works were prepared especially for the Marine Band for these concerts, from film soundtrack highlights to original concert works. These full-length gala concerts from 2003 and 2008 are, taken together, a tour de force of some of Williams' most popular and creative scores, and serve as the primary source for this unique new recording collection. "Performing with 'The President's Own, '" writes Williams, "has been one of the highest honors of my working life in music. My great hope is that listeners of this special recording will experience some of the exhilaration and fun that I enjoyed conducting these two memorable performances... this ensemble truly is a national treasure of which all Americans should be justly proud."
Following the huge success of the album Spotlight on John Williams, the City Light Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kevin Griffiths, returns with an equally spectacular follow-up project: Sound of Adventure. The double CD brings together legendary film themes that embody a spirit of adventure, imagination, and emotional depth in equal measure-a tribute to the great soundscapes of Hollywood. An album that not only delights film music fans, but also impressively translates the orchestral artistry of the great screen composers into concert format.
On their premiere recording, the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir, directed by celebrated choral conductor Ralph Allwood, perform the works of British Choral Award winner Roderick Williams. Based in Greenwich, East London the choir is comprised of both students from the conservatoire (including several choral scholars) as well as outstanding volunteer singers. It is unique amongst cathedral, church and collegiate choirs in the UK in that it has ready access to the wide range of musical resources at the Conservatoire, collaborating frequently in a wide variety of genres as well as performing for services at the beautiful 18th Century Chapel of St Peter & St Paul. As well as being renowned as a singer Roderick Williams is also well-respected as a composer, and his works have been premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio.
Grace Williams (19 February 1906 - 10 February 1977) was a Welsh composer. Born in the coastal town of Barry, near Cardiff, Grace learned piano and violin and developed her musical skills early. She won the Morfydd Owen scholarship to Cardiff University in 1923 where she studied under Professor David Evans and in 1926 she proceeded to the Royal College of Music, London, where she was taught by Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Williams is regarded by many as one of Wales finest composers. She wrote two symphonies, the earlier being the first symphony ever composed by a Welsh composer, a mass, one opera, numerous other pieces for orchestras and chamber ensemble, as well as accomplished vocal works. She was also the first British woman to score a feature film, with Blue Scar in 1949. Her chamber music, recorded here for the first time, spans 40 years.
Williams & Bernstein / Ehnes, Denève, St. Louis Symphony
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Apr 26, 2024
The St. Louis Symphony and their music director Stéphane Denève present a program featuring two of the most accomplished American composers in history: Leonard Bernstein with his Serenade and John Williams with his Violin Concerto, both performed by star James Ehnes, one of the most exceptional North American violinists. John Williams himself was present at the recording of his violin concerto, working together with the St. Louis Symphony, Denève, and Ehnes.
Both works evolve around love: Bernstein’s Serenade was inspired by musings on love from Plato’s Symposium while Williams’s work was arguably inspired and eventually dedicated to his suddenly deceased wife. By combining these two concert pieces, this album puts the symphonic work of Bernstein and Williams at the center, two composers who weren’t afraid of crossing the boundaries between film music and “serious” classical genres at a time when these worlds were generally kept far apart. Especially in Williams' concerto, there are still hints of his work as a film composer; the slow movement brings to mind a scene of emotional gravity.
Widely considered one of the world's finest orchestras, the SLSO maintains its commitment to artistic excellence, educational impact, and community connections. The St. Louis Symphony, Stéphane Denève, and James Ehnes all make their Pentatone debut.
REVIEWS:
Dutch label Pentatone continues to champion American orchestras with the Saint Louis Symphony’s recording of violin concertos by John Williams and Leonard Bernstein. Williams dedicated the 1974 Violin Concerto No. 1 to his late wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. It’s a serious-minded, sometimes bleak affair, and Williams has called it atonal, though it seems harmonically straightforward enough.
With a 30-minute, three-movement sweep, Williams's concerto is expansive too. Canadian violinist James Ehnes is the thoughtful soloist, investing the music with deserved gravitas and fully on top of its technical challenges. Stéphane Denève leads a weighty reading, darkly dramatic in the opening “Moderato,” consoling in the glowing slow movement (which Ehnes plays like an angel), and incisive in the intermittently clangorous finale.
Bernstein’s Serenade has been recorded many times, but this astute interpretation is a welcome reminder of both its wistful profundity and its headstrong vigor. Ehnes and Denève open the debate spaciously with an expressive account of the “Phaedrus” movement. “Aristophanes” seems to channel graceful elements out of Candide, while a weighty “Socrates” gives way to the jazzy joie de vivre of “Alcibiades.” The violin sound is clean and clear, offset against a slightly resonant orchestra.
-- Musical America (Clive Paget)
Violinist James Ehnes’ discography is so extensive that it was only a question of when he’d get around to recording Leonard Bernstein’sSerenade, not if. What’s more striking about his new recording with Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is that it pairs Bernstein’s 1954 effort with John Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 1.
The Williams dates from the mid-‘70s and was written right after the untimely death of his first wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. Its brooding, volatile aspect perhaps owes something to that context – the central “Slowly in peaceful concentration” unfolds like an elegiac barcarolle – though this is hardly funereal music.
In fact, the Concerto marked a turning point in Williams’ concert music, allowing him to cultivate what he called the “Romantic [Atonal], but in an American way”-style he’d long been striving for...there’s a motivic rigor here that’s straight out of the Brahms-Schoenberg line and the writing for violin and orchestra is thoroughly idiomatic...[here, it is] exceptionally well played and draws out the tight thematic relationships between each movement. The Canadian violinist makes the most of the introspective spots – the middle movement, the reflective episode in the center of the finale, especially – while also suffusing its bravura passagework with purpose and direction.
Denève and the SLSO are right with him, teasing out the music’s gentle echoes of Hollywood and sometimes mercurial shifts of character with surety and ease.
They make for an impressive combination, too, in the Bernstein. Take or leave the score’s programmatic allusions to Plato’sSymposium: theSerenadeis one of the American composer’s freshest and most satisfying concert works.
Here, Ehnes plays with gorgeous tone – the clarity of his bow arm is just marvelous, as is his left hand’s ability to cleanly and purposefully get the music’s knotty double and triple stops to sing. Over theSerenade’sfirst three movements, too, there’s a strong sense of shape and propulsion: this is well-focused, graceful, spry Bernstein.
After releasing the complete set of Ennio Morricone's Cinema Suites for violin and orchestra on two albums (Cinema Suites, A495 and Cinema Rarities, A554), Marco Serino now presents world premiere recordings of the Maestro's own arrangements for violin and piano. Marco is joined by pianist Leandro Piccioni, who, like Marco, brings over twenty years of experience working closely with Morricone in his favoured orchestra, Roma Sinfonietta. These original arrangements, all from celebrated soundtracks, represent the point of departure for an original anthology in which the two musicians investigate the wider repertoire connected to the cinema. Cinema Memories ranges from works that have since become classics such as the Three Pieces from Schindler's List by John Williams to Bernstein's West Side Story Suite, one of the outright masterpieces of musicals on film, and Myroslav Skoryk's Melody in A minor, a jewel of a piece that has since become a sort of national anthem for the Ukrainian people. It is a programme that interweaves memory and imagination, melancholy and light, dreams and reality, making each listening experience a truly multifaceted experience.
Giacchino, Göransson & Williams: Star Wars Stories - Music from The Mandalorian, Rogue One & Solo
Sony Masterworks
CD
$11.98May 04, 2022
A collection of the most famous melodies and fan favorite tracks from the recent Star Wars universe including The Mandalorian, Solo and Rogue One. The compilation features main themes, epic orchestral tracks and emotional songs, paying tribute to the originals by John Williams, Michael Giacchino and Ludwig Göransson.
Michael Giacchino writes of his score for Rogue One: “I had four and a half weeks to write this score, and since it happened so quickly, I think adrenaline just took over. I was only hoping that I could come up with something that I would be happy with when I saw it in the theater. If at that moment, my focus has been on the fact that this was Star Wars, I am not sure I would have been able to get done what I had to do in the time frame I was given. It wasn’t until I was on the scoring stage at Fox that it hit me. I decided to have the orchestra play John Williams’ main title as a warm up, to set the mood, and to test the mics. It was at that moment I thought, “This is insane that I am getting to do this!”. After all, I saw Star Wars when I was nine, and that score and that film is what inspired me and set me on the path that I am on today.”
Includes:
Music from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Main Theme (From “Star Wars: Rogue One”) Imperial Suite (From “Star Wars: Rogue One”) Jedha City Ambush(From “Star Wars: Rogue One”) Jyn Erso and Hope (From “Star Wars: Rogue One”) Hope and End Credits (From “Star Wars: Rogue One”)
Music from Solo: A Star Wars Story
Meet Han (From “Solo: A Star Wars Story”) Flying with Chewie (From “Solo: A Star Wars Story”) Reminiscence Therapy (From “Solo: A Star Wars Story”) The Adventures of Han (From “Solo: A Star Wars Story”)
Music from Star Wars: The Mandalorian
Main Theme (From “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”) Grogu Theme (From “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”) Luke Skywalker Hallway Theme (From “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”) Boba Fett Theme (From “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”) End Theme (From “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”)
