John Williams in Baltimore!

     Oh, how I love a John Williams score!  I own many of his soundtracks on both vinyl and CD and have listened to them over and over since I was young.  So, I was thrilled to see that John Williams would be performing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Tuesday, June 4, 2013.  I quickly purchased tickets for what would become a complete sell out performance.

 

Photo Credit: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57582444-1/john-williams-to-compose-star-wars-score-j.j-abrams-hints-at-it/

 

     A glowing review of the evening is available on The Baltimore Sun's website, so I'll just state a few of my impressions from the evening.  First, it was both fantastic and a thrill to see John Williams in person.  When he took the stage, it was almost overwhelming for me since I've enjoyed his music through five decades (starting in the 1970s).  The rest of the audience obviously felt the same way because he immediately got a standing ovation from the audience before he reached the center of the stage.  I've never seen such a reaction in any live performance in my life.

     Mr. Williams conducted an interesting selection of his works which displayed his wide range of compositional skills.  One piece performed was a suite from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."  I thought that was a very unique choice since so much of the soundtrack is A-tonal.  The melodies that do exist on the soundtrack are not as easily recognized as something like the theme from "Superman."  I own the "Close Encounters otTK" soundtrack on both vinyl and CD, so hearing selections from it live was a real thrill for me.  I feel like it's one of his more underrated soundtracks.  It's expressive and full of complex emotions; confusion, fear, terror, wonder, and a hint of joy (sometimes all at once) -- pretty much everything you'd feel if you had to deal with a close encounter with peaceful aliens.  And man, does it ever sound great performed live!

     There were also familiar favorites, as expected.  Among the pieces were several well known selections from the "Harry Potter" films (great for the young members of the audience), a selection from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" accompanied by the film clip, a  selection from "E.T." accompanied by Mr. Williams discussing the piece, a piece from his Olympics compositions, and ending with three famous pieces from the "Star Wars" films.  The BSO obviously enjoyed playing all of the songs in the performance and did an excellent job with the material, but the energy level was particularly high during "The Imperial March" from the "Star Wars" selections.

     It was very interesting to see the crowd at the Meyerhoff.  There were some of the older, typical symphony-goers, but a good portion of the audience was made up of Gen-X'ers, which is my age range.  Normally, Gen-X is rather apathetic towards supporting the BSO, so it was great to see so many people in my age range there supporting the symphony.  Truly, John Williams' music is the music of my generation and the support in the audience showed it.  His songs are so ingrained into our Gen-X culture and our upbringing that I've yet to meet anyone around my age who can't hum at least some of his theme songs to various movies.

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     John Williams, thank you so much for coming to Baltimore and donating your time for the BSO's fundraiser.  I'm sure you are busy with other things, so it was so wonderful to have you visit.  Your presence brought in a great crowd and really helped our wonderful Symphony full of talented musicians.  Please come back and visit if you are able.  Baltimore would love to have you as our guest again.

     BSO, thank you for performing the pieces so well.  You made the pieces sound better live than they do on my very well loved vinyl and CD collection.  There's a reason you (both John Williams and the BSO) got several standing ovations -- and special thanks for playing additional songs through those, ending the night with the very popular theme from Indiana Jones.  Thank you for a thrilling performance.

     Soundtracks from John Williams' library can be purchased on Amazon.  Some are out of print, but you can purchase them from various sellers.  Condition information for used CDs is listed.  I've had very good luck purchasing out of print CDs through Amazon in the past, so I do recommend using their sellers as a source.  My only advice is to look for sellers that list a specific condition for the CD that you want to purchase.