Amazingly, the film Star Wars will be 50 next year; the original film was released in May 1997. And the composer of the iconic music for the film, John Williams, is 95 next year. In celebration, the Philharmonia and conductor Caleb Young will be celebrating both these events at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 February 2027.
Across a remarkable career spanning more than six decades, John Williams has written music for over 100 films, working with some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, including Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman. His extraordinary achievements include five Academy Awards and 54 Oscar nominations.
The concert will include music from Star Wars along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Speilberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Hook. There will also be the chance to encounter Williams’s work for the concert hall with his Viola Concerto with soloist Antoine Tamesit.
The concerto was premiered in 2009 by the Boston Pops Orchestra with the solo part written for the orchestra’s principal violist Cathy Basrak, along with a significant role for timpani played at the premier by her husband. Williams has written over twenty concertante works spanning the Flute Concerto from 1969 to When The World Was Waltzing, for violin and orchestra (2025), including concertos for piano, violin, clarinet and cello.
Full details from the Southbank Centre website.
.jpg?w=160&resize=160,160&ssl=1 "Casting a spell: baritone Andrè Schuen & pianist Julius Drake in Schumann's Heine settings at Temple Church for Temple Music")
