Yo-Yo Ma is a French-American cellist. Born to Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy there and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, Ma moved with his family to Boston and later to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard University. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. He has recorded more than 92 albums and received 19 Grammy Awards.
John Towner Williams is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. He is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. With 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at 92 years old.
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Shigeru Umebayashi is a Japanese composer.
Discography for the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Star Wars (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 1977 film Star Wars, composed and conducted by John Williams and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Williams' score for Star Wars was recorded over eight sessions at Anvil Studios in Denham, England on March 5, 8–12, 15 and 16, 1977. The score was orchestrated by Williams, Herbert W. Spencer, Alexander Courage, Angela Morley, Arthur Morton and Albert Woodbury. Spencer orchestrated the scores for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The score was recorded by engineer Eric Tomlinson and edited by Kenneth Wannberg, and the scoring sessions were produced by Star Wars director George Lucas and supervised by Lionel Newman, head of 20th Century Fox's music department.
Memoirs of a Geisha is a 2005 American epic period drama film directed by Rob Marshall and adapted by Robin Swicord from the 1997 novel of the same name by Arthur Golden. It tells the story of a young Japanese girl, Chiyo Sakamoto, who is sold by her impoverished family to a geisha house to support them by training as and eventually becoming a geisha under the pseudonym "Sayuri Nitta." The film centers around the sacrifices and hardship faced by pre-World War II geisha, and the challenges posed to geisha society by the war and a modernizing world. It stars Zhang Ziyi in the lead role, with Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Youki Kudoh, Suzuka Ohgo, and Samantha Futerman.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score for the 2004 film of the same name, the third and final score in the series to be composed and conducted by John Williams. The soundtrack was performed at Abbey Road Studios in London with various freelance musicians, with the London Voices and the London Oratory School Schola providing vocal performances. The score was orchestrated by Conrad Pope and Eddie Karam. The soundtrack is a significant departure from the previous two, since the director, Alfonso Cuarón, wanted the music to take a different approach. It introduced three major themes: "Window to the Past", "Double Trouble", and "Buckbeak's Flight". Other repeating new motifs were composed for the Time-Turner, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black's hunt for Harry. It was released on 25 May 2004 and charted at No. 68 on the Billboard 200 and also charted at No. 3 on the Top Soundtracks Chart.
The Jaws soundtrack is the music composed and conducted by John Williams for Steven Spielberg's 1975 film Jaws. The soundtrack is particularly notable for the 2-note ostinato which represents the shark, a theme so simple that Spielberg initially thought it was a joke by the composer.
The Constant Gardener is the original soundtrack of the 2005 Academy Award- and Golden Globe- winning film The Constant Gardener starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. The original score and songs were composed and produced by Alberto Iglesias.
Schindler's List: Original Motion Picture Soundtrackis the score album for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film of the same name. Composed and conducted by John Williams, the original score features violinist Itzhak Perlman.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence - Music from the Motion Picture is the film score of the 2001 film of the same name, composed and conducted by John Williams. The original score was composed by Williams and featured singers Lara Fabian on two songs and Josh Groban on one. Soprano Barbara Bonney provided the vocal solos in several tracks.
Air and Simple Gifts is a quartet composed and arranged by American composer John Williams for the January 20, 2009, inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. The first public performance of the piece was in Washington, D.C., immediately prior to Obama taking the oath of office, when musicians Anthony McGill (clarinet), Itzhak Perlman (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Gabriela Montero (piano) synced their performance to a tape they had recorded two days earlier. It was the first classical quartet to be performed at a presidential inauguration. Obama officially became the 44th President of the United States while the piece was being performed, at noon, as the United States Constitution stipulates.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the soundtrack to the 2009 film of the same name, written and composed by Nicholas Hooper. The score was conducted by Hooper and Alastair King. It is the second Harry Potter film to be scored by Hooper, who also composed the score for the previous film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The soundtrack was released on 14 July 2009, a day before the film's release, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 is a motion picture soundtrack to the 2011 film of the same name composed and conducted by Alexandre Desplat. The soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy Award, Satellite Award, Houston Film Critics Society Award, Denver Film Critics Society Award, and an IFMCA Award for Best Original Score for a Fantasy Film. The soundtrack won the San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Score.
John Williams, an accomplished composer formerly credited as Johnny Williams, initially worked as a jazz pianist and studio musician before transitioning into composing for television and film. Throughout his illustrious career, he has often conducted his own compositions whenever possible.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the film score to the 2015 film of the same name composed by John Williams with Williams and William Ross conducting, and Gustavo Dudamel appearing as a "special guest conductor". The album was released by Walt Disney Records on December 18, 2015, in both digipak CD and digital formats.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the film score to the 2019 film of the same name composed and conducted by John Williams. The soundtrack album was released in both digital formats and digipak CD by Walt Disney Records on December 18 and 20, 2019 respectively. It is his final soundtrack for the franchise; shortly before the sessions began, Williams announced that he would be retiring from Star Wars after over 40 years as its primary music composer. The score earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score and won Williams a Saturn Award for Best Music.
