Legendary composer John Williams cancels retirement

John Williams, the 91 year old legendary composer, has come out of retirement, much to the excitement of movie lovers.

Williams, the legendary film and music composer known for his work on Indiana Jones, the early Harry Potter movies, Star Wars, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and more, has just announced that he will be leaving retirement at the age of 91.

Last year, the musician revealed he’d been considering retirement – but after the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, he was keen to keep going.

And finally, at the end of the year, this potential end of his retirement is now official.

John Williams cancels retirement plans

In an exclusive interview with The Times, the renowned composer said: “If a film came along that I was greatly interested in, with a schedule that I could cope with, then I wouldn’t want to rule anything out. Everything is possible. All is before us. Only our limitations are holding us back. Or, to put it more simply: I like to keep an open mind.”

Currently it is unclear if he will focus more on scoring movies, or primarily on his own music, of which he’s already made priority in 2024. Next year he will be conducting his own Second Violin Concerto with London’s Philharmonic Orchestra, and will also be conducting in Vienna, along with Berlin in 2025.

Of course, even when in retirement, Williams was still showing his love for music, performing a concert at the Kennedy Center just last year. Check it out below:

Speaking on his long career, and how over the years classical music and the commercial world have come all the closer, he said: “Thirty or 40 years ago, when I would take a programme of film music to one of our big orchestras, there might be condescension. I understood it; I understand the value of things made in the commercial world and their place in the art world. But now things are different. I’d love to come back in 50 years’ time and see what cinema is contributing to the development of new music, because I think young composers will want to work across both.”

As for how his own work has changed throughout cinema, “film requires you to adapt your style to every project that comes along: Home Alone can’t be in the same idiom as Saving Private Ryan or Jurassic Park, but perhaps we all have many parts to our characters. Somewhere in all of my film scores there must be some kind of ‘me’. But I leave that to others to identify.”

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