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.

Williams: An American Journey

Like it or not John Williams has dominated silver-screen culture since the 1990s. His cinema music is often the film; the film is often the music. There is a concert dimension to his work as there was also for his great idols - Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman and Herrmann. On this album we encounter both faces and realise there is no great chasm between them.
 
Discs 1 and 2 address the concert hall world with the occasional departure. The third takes us on an exhilarating romp through the film music firmament - a world he has sent spinning and glittering. Williams has a marvellously piercing emotive touch that cuts through even a pachyderm's insensitivity. I recall for example coming out of a 1998 cinema showing of Saving Private Ryan with tears streaming down my face: the music and images intensify each other.
 
CD 1
Air and Simple Gifts was written for the Obama inauguration and is laid out for cello, piano, violin and clarinet. It keys into the same material that gripped Copland but imparts to it the fruity density of Howells' Piano Quartet. American Journey is a series of touching and sometimes portentous vignettes of the history of the USA. There's a dash of Copland in Popular Entertainment and of Saving Private Ryan in Immigration and Building and Flight and Technology, of Glass and Reich in Arts and Sports. The two worlds come into an even more candid collision - or collusion - in the Suite for Memoirs of a Geisha in which Yo-Yo Ma is soloist - such is John Williams' pull. The writing is roundedly impassioned. Ma's cello is wonderfully sonorous and singingly delicate in Going to School. It is an engrossingly fine score, full of delicate effects that steer well clear of kitsch Chinoiserie. The Song for World Peace - now there's a gauntlet thrown down. It is in fact a slow and satisfying evolutionary ascent to majestic heights.
 
CD 2
Summon the Heroes has the odd drum salvo and brass blast redolent of a certain Copland Fanfare. It all works well and there is something of the Superman score to it too. Odd that the Utah Symphony are conducted by the composer for Hymn to New England - it’s another skilled fanfare relieved by soft contoured undulating string writing. Sound The Bells is another eager and dazzlingly bright fanfare piece.
 
The Five Sacred Trees is a fine bassoon concerto - a sort of Celtic counterpart to The Geisha suite written at a time when things Celtic were in the ascendant: from Riverdance to Titanic. Craeb Uisnig and Dathi have a considerable insurgency of dissonance which we will again encounter on CD 3 in Born on the Fourth of July and the music for Close Encounters.
 
Elegy is a short heartfelt piece, here played by Yo-Yo Ma. It is in Geisha Suite mode. It’s a fine addition to the concert repertoire; any cellist contender for BBC Young Musician of the Year and similar should consider it as a contest piece.
 
The game and indefatigable Mission Theme will be known to Americans as the music for NBC Nightly News. March from the quirky film 1941 is Yankee-doodle rambunctious and not short on brazen confidence. The Olympic Spirit embodies the surging flag-waving of the stadium and especially the spectacle of the opening ceremonies.
 
CD 3
This disc is the deliverer of instant and usually uncomplicated enjoyment. While Williams clearly does obeisance to Herrmann’s North by North-West in Jaws and to Holst’s Planets in the Star Wars main title, his musical wizardry delivers time after time. Elite orchestras directed by the composer are everywhere and that's also true for the harmonica-dominated score for Sugarland Express. Toots Thielemans brings out the down-South and dirty Galahadry of the music reminiscent of a composer we never hear of these days: Bill Russo. Russo had at least two major pieces on DG LPs in the 1970s. The Flying Theme is done broadly and with intoxicating eagerness - a touch of Disney here, I fancy. The suite of three movements from Born on the Fourth of July is from a deeper, tougher vein with the gears of disillusion fully engaged cog by cog. Oily dissonance is strongly drawn in as it is also in the Ligeti-style Close Encounters. Perlman's version of the theme from Schindler's List is all throaty emotion - old gold glowing in auburn embers. A quick outing from the Theme from Jurassic Park has Williams taking us from still and unprepossessing ruminations into that broad optimism-loaded string hymn which he took onwards to a further peak in Saving Private Ryan. Cadillac of the Skies from Empire of the Sun comes complete with angelic choir here provided by the Bostonians rather than by Hollywood. The rambunctious Raiders March is wild and woolly with its Waltonian eddies and under-currents. More of the similar in The Throne Room and Finale from Star Wars - total immersion. It is perhaps a little cheese-cakey in its revelling in victory of the worthy over the wicked. Hats off to one of film music’s Greats: John Williams. Here's to the next 100 films.  



-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

GREATEST HITS

Let no Star Wars fan go home disappointed-this 2-CD soundtrack set brings you every note John Williams composed for one of the most anticipated films in recent history, from the opening fanfare to the last end credit! All 68 tracks are in order as heard in the film, two bonus tracks (with sound effects and dialogue) are included and more than 60 photos grace the pages of the 60-page booklet. A collector's dream!

Spanish Guitar Favourites

Swing

WHAT IF MOZART WROTE ROLL OVER

This selection is also available in Super Audio CD format.
This selection is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording.
John Williams is known to most people through his scores for blockbuster films such as JURASSIC PARK, SCHINDLER'S LIST, JAWS, and the STAR WARS series, among others, but he is also a noted composer of concert works as well as a renowned conductor. This set features his compositions for cello, performed here by the inimitable Yo-Yo Ma with the composer himself wielding the baton. The album gets off to a rousing start with the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, a piece that's vintage Williams: a cinematic blend of majestic themes, brassy fanfares, and dramatic flourishes.
The two other orchestral works on the disc are impressionistic tone poems that demonstrate the variety of Williams's sonic palette--the Elegy for Cello and Orchestra sets plaintive melodies amid lush, swirling pastels, while Heartwood evokes a restless moodiness through dense, dark-hued harmonies. The Three Pieces for Solo Cello are showcases for the instrument that explore the full range of its sonorities, incorporating folk elements and touches of Americana along the way. Ma brings his usual artistic commitment and technical brilliance to the proceedings, dispatching the challenges and demands of the works with his customary aplomb. Williams's crowd-pleasing compositional style and Ma's dazzling artistry make a winning combination.

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 is one of the greatest film composers of all time by any objective standard; his 49 Academy Award nominations are second only to Walt Disney himself. Williams and Walt Disney Concert Hall have gone together since the beginning. He opened the third inaugural gala, Soundstage L.A., in 2003 with the world premiere of his Soundings, a piece that has also provided the carillon lobby chimes that announce the end of intermission.

For the 2014-15 Opening Night Concert and Gala, the Los Angeles Philharmonic paid loving tribute to the composer, long a champion and close friend of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, an awestruck fan of the musical icon, led the orchestra in a cross-section of Maestro Williams’s matchless canon.

A JOHN WILLIAMS CELEBRATION featuring works from:
Olympic Fanfare and Theme
Schindler’s List
Fiddler on the Roof
Soundings
Catch Me If You Can
Star Wars
Amistad
Jaws
The Empire Strikes Back

Itzhak Perlman, violin
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Recorded at Walt Disney Concert Hall, USA, 2014

Bonus: Interviews with John Williams, Gustavo Dudamel, and Itzhak Perlman

Running time: 85 mins (concert) + 18 mins (bonus)

Subtitles: German, French, Spanish, Korean
Booklet: English, German, French
Picture: NTSC, 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Chris Williams: Songs of the Coromandel Coast

Vaughan-Williams Tina Louise Cayouette, viola Six Studies in English Folksong, etc.

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Sony Masterworks BEE MOVIE: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE - Rupert Gregson-Williams.

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.

A 4 CD extravaganza of John Williams’ soundtrack and film score music joins the 12th batch of box sets released as a part of the Sony Classical Masters Series and provides a colossal reminder of Williams’ prodigious breadth and ubiquity of his works in some of the most culture defining films of the recent Hollywood era. With a disc devoted to his Star War scores, and another to his orchestral works and Olympics inspired works; the collection also features popular orchestras and soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic and more.

The Legacy of Mary Lou Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of Britain’s most illustrious composers, and this specially curated selection of works demonstrates the sheer breadth of his achievement. As a major 20th century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in critically acclaimed recordings (‘A clear top recommendation’ wrote Gramophone of A Sea Symphony). Popular orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor shows the composer’s high standing in the English choral tradition.

REVIEW:

More Vaughan Williams—and very welcome, too. While admirers may favour other performances, every take here on the composer’s exquisite scores is more than competitive. This curated selection of works is a measure of RVW’s achievements. As a major 20th-century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in much-praised recordings, while winning orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor is a solid addition.

-- Classical CD Source (Barry Forshaw)

The collaborative efforts, the mutual emulation and inspiration of Sir Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome have spanned 18 years, led to one of the world's greatest and most versatile virtuoso ensembles and to acclaimed live and studio recordings showcasing an eclectic selection of symphonic and choral music. Their repertoire features already legendary performances of Verdi's Requiem and Quattro pezzi sacri. In addition, their recording of Bruckner's 8th Symphony features here for the very first time! This box brings together all the recordings that the British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano (b.1959) made with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the years from 2005 to 2022 for Warner Classics.

John Williams Reimagined is a project of film score producer Robert Townson, who imagined an album where John Williams famous film themes are scored for a chamber trio of flute: Sara Andon, cello: Cécilia Tsan and piano: Simone Pedroni. A double album with hits, spanning a period of more than 50 years of terrific film music from Jane Eyre to the recent The Fabelmans and including, ET, Star Wars, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park.