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.
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scene in question. Scores are written by one or more composers under the guidance of or in collaboration with the film's director or producer and are then most often performed by an ensemble of musicians – usually including an orchestra or band, instrumental soloists, and choir or vocalists – known as playback singers – and recorded by a sound engineer. The term is less frequently applied to music written for media such as live theatre, television and radio programs, and video games, and said music is typically referred to as either the soundtrack or incidental music.
Harry Haag James was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band to great commercial success from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947, but shortly after he reorganized and was active again with his band from then until his death in 1983. He was especially known among musicians for his technical proficiency as well as his tone, and was influential on new trumpet players from the late 1930s into the 1940s. He was also an actor in a number of films that usually featured his band.
The Boston Pops is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart.
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was an American composer and conductor. He is one of a handful of people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, a feat dubbed the "EGOT". He and composer Richard Rodgers are the only people to have won those prizes and a Pulitzer Prize ("PEGOT").
David Arnold is an English film composer whose credits include scoring five James Bond films (1997-2008), as well as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998), Shaft (2000), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Four Brothers (2005), Hot Fuzz (2007), and the television series Little Britain and Sherlock. For Independence Day, he received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television, and for Sherlock, he and co-composer Michael Price won a Creative Arts Emmy for the score of "His Last Vow", the final episode in the third series. Arnold scored the BBC / Amazon Prime series Good Omens (2019) adapted by Neil Gaiman from his book Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett. Arnold is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
"Secret Love" is a song composed by Sammy Fain (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for Calamity Jane, a 1953 musical film in which it was introduced by Doris Day in the title role. Ranked as a number 1 hit for Day on both the Billboard and Cash Box, the song also afforded Day a number 1 hit in the UK. "Secret Love" has subsequently been recorded by a wide range of artists, becoming a C&W hit firstly for Slim Whitman and later for Freddy Fender, with the song also becoming an R&B hit for Billy Stewart, whose version also reached the top 40 as did Freddy Fender's. In the UK, "Secret Love" would become the career record of Kathy Kirby via her 1963 remake of the song. The melody bears a slight resemblance to the opening theme of Schubert's A-major piano sonata, D.664.
John Valmore Pearson was a British composer, orchestra leader and pianist. He led the Top of the Pops orchestra for sixteen years, wrote a catalogue of library music, and had many of his pieces used as the theme music to television series.
Bob Stanley is a British musician, journalist, author, and film producer. He is a member of the indie pop group Saint Etienne and has had a parallel career as a music journalist and author, writing for NME, Melody Maker, Mojo, The Guardian and The Times, as well as writing several books on music and football. His second publication, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Modern Pop, was published by Faber & Faber in 2013. His third publication Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop Music: A History was published by Pegasus in 2022. He also has a career as a DJ and as a producer of record labels, and has collaborated on a series of films about London.
Julian Mark Ovenden is an English actor and singer. He has starred on Broadway and West End stages, in television series in both the United Kingdom and United States, in films, and performed internationally as a concert and recording artist.
"P.S. I Love You" is a popular song with music by Gordon Jenkins and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. published in 1934.
"Summer '68" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd on their 1970 album Atom Heart Mother.
Andrew Powell is a British musical composer, arranger and performer, born of Welsh parents. He moved to Wales in 2003.
Grover Mitchell, born Grover Curry Mitchell was an American jazz trombonist who led the Count Basie Orchestra.
"Rock-A-Hula Baby ("Twist" Special)" is a 1961 song recorded by Elvis Presley and performed in the 1961 film Blue Hawaii. The song was also released as a single.
Gavyn Wright is a British violinist and orchestra leader with the London Session Orchestra and Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
The Johann Strauss Orchestra is a pops orchestra founded in the Netherlands by André Rieu in 1987. The orchestra is well known for performing classical works with a distinctly unorthodox frivolity, joking with the audience and performing all sorts of antics.
Maida Vale Studios is a complex of seven BBC sound studios, of which five are in regular use, in Delaware Road, Maida Vale, west London.
Tristan Frederick Allan Fry is a British drummer and percussionist.
Africa Before Dark is a 1928 American animated short film featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.
