By a very popular 62.5% vote, Memoirs of a Geisha won the contest for best John Williams Score. You will hear Sayuri's Theme and the End Credits from the movie.

Speaking of the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha is an Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning movie adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and directed by Rob Marshall. It was released in the United States on December 9, 2005 by Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks and Spyglass Entertainment. It stars Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Youki Kudoh, and Suzuka Ohgo. Ohgo plays the younger Sayuri in the movie, which was filmed in southern and northern California and in several locations in Kyoto, including the Kiyomizu-dera temple and the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. The Japanese release of the film was titled "Sayuri". The DVD release of the film occurred on March 28, 2006.

Start the next month fresh...with Anthem for Winds and Percussion by Claude T. Smith. An exciting piece that is ready to be heard by the full audience. Also coming next month, instrumental studies including brass, woodwinds, keyboards, strings, and weird instruments. Thanks for subscribing! ;)

Today's piece is titled "A Hymn to New England" by John Williams.

This attractive three-minute work is a combination of an occasional piece and a film score. It is built from a fanfare motive and a particularly warm example of a typical John Williams film theme of the warmhearted kind.

The decade of the 1970s was John Williams' break out as the leading Hollywood film composer with his scores to Jaws, Superman, and Star Wars. It then saw him establish himself as one of America's most important light music conductors when he gained the podium of the Boston Pops Orchestra to replace the legendary Arthur Fiedler.

That appointment seems to have brought with it an important new career: Composer of celebratory occasional pieces, which he began to do with a couple of pieces commemorating the Pops and a piece (Jubilee 350) marking the anniversary of Boston's founding. Soon he was writing new pieces for all sorts of events, including a number of works for successive Olympic Games.

This one served to open a new theater in Boston, the Mugar Omni Theater at Boston's Museum of Science. It seems to be the practice for Omnimax theaters to film a short scenic film about the region where their theaters are located for their opening programs, and Williams wrote this music for such a production.

This work begins with a brass figure that is rather genial and unbombastic as fanfares go before settling down into a warm statement of the main theme. The work is in a simple song form, and rises to a strong conclusion combining the theme and the fanfares.

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(FYI: the picture features a waterfall in new england) ;)

[Today's episode starts out with the new Musician's Almanac "Theme"]

The main feature today is the "Olympic Spirit" composed by John Williams. Following that is the well known "Olympic Fanfare and Theme"

The Olympic Spirit, was written for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the corresponding NBC broadcast. The piece utilizes the brass, wind, and percussion sections heavily.

Many composers have had their music used by, or have written for the Olympics. Often, they title their pieces "Olympic Fanfare and Theme." One such notable "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" is a piece of music written by John Williams for the 1984 Olympic Games, which were held in Los Angeles. It was released in its entirety to the public on the albums "The Official Music of the XXIIIrd Olympiad Los Angeles 1984" and "The Official Music of the 1984 Games." The premiere recording, as performed by an orchestra comprised of Los Angeles-area musicians under the baton of the composer has not yet been publicly made available on any form of digital media. The piece eventually made its way onto CD (as a re-recording) with the release on Philips entitled "By Request: The Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra," and has a slightly different arrangement than the original recording. "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" was awarded a Grammy in 1985.

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The main feature of the show today is a song that commemorates the Centennial Celebration of the Modern Olympic Games. Summon the Heroes by John Williams was premiered on July 19, 1996. The piece features heavy use of the brass and wind sections and is approximately six minutes in length. It is featured on the album Summon the Heroes. The opening trumpet solo in that recording is played by Timothy Morrison, then–principal trumpet of the Boston Pops. The piece has been arranged for various types of ensembles, including wind ensembles. This theme is now used prevalently by NBC for intros and outros for commercial breaks of the Olympics.

VOTE TODAY!!! For your favorite John Williams Score. Go to www.davidactonmusic.net and click on "Podcast" The winning score will be announced on the last episode in April, so vote today!

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Today's Episode has been shortened to just music from the Indiana Jones Trilogy.

The Themes that You Will Hear

1. Indiana Jones Raiders March

2. Parade of the Slave Children

Enjoy!

And Now, Begin Voting for your favorite John Williams work!

Some example options are

- Memoirs of a Geisha

- Home Alone

- E.T.

- Jaws

- Close Encounters of the Third Kind

- Back to the Future

- NBC Mission Theme

- Superman

- Jurassic Park

- Across the Stars (Star Wars)

- Sugarland Express

- Dracula

- 1941

- Empire of the Sun

- Saving Private Ryan

- Amazing Stories

Vote for YOUR favorite score, and it may win! The Winner will be announced and played on April 27, so VOTE TODAY

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Today, take a journey into the magical world of Harry Potter.

The Themes that you will hear are:

1. Prologue Theme

2. Fawkes the Phoenix

3. Buckbeak's Flight

4. Hedwig's Theme

(The themes are not seperated...they run smoothly into each other)

Different composers have been involved in writing the music for the Harry Potter films. The scores for the first, second and third movies were composed by John Williams. Patrick Doyle composed the score for the fourth film. The composer for the fifth film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has officially been announced to be Nicholas Hooper.

The first and third movies were nominated for Academy Awards for best dramatic score.

Various adaptations of the scores have been made, including jazz versions of the principal themes by the Mark Kramer Jazz Trio in 2005.

About the Songs:

Fawkes the Phoenix:

A beautiful and heroic theme related to the bird, Fawkes.

Buckbeak's Flight:

A majestic, "soaring" theme largely using strings and Drums at the beginning.

Hedwig's Theme:

This is the main theme of the Harry Potter movies. It is associated with Harry, Hedwig and magic. The first part is soft and melodic, while the second part is loud and rousing, bringing to mind some of Williams' Imperial motifs from Star Wars.

Enjoy!

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Welcome to John Williams Month on the Musician's Almanac!

Today's Episode is focused on one of John Williams most popular works, Star Wars.

For more information on this episode, or the podcast in general...log onto www.davidactonmusic.net and click on "Podcast"

The music of Star Wars consists of the scores written for all six Star Wars films by composer John Williams between 1977 and 1983 for the Original Trilogy, and 1999 and 2005 for the Prequel Trilogy. The anthem of the saga and easily its most recognizable melody, the main theme is variously associated with Luke, heroism and adventure.

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Today's musical selection is called Steps. The Celtic influenced, Norway based New Age duo Secret Garden comprised violinist Fionnuala Sherry and keyboardist Rolf Lovland. After winning the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest with "Nocturne," the first instrumental track to take home top honors in four decades, in 1996 they issued their debut LP, Songs from a Secret Garden; White Stones followed in 1997 and Dawn of a New Century arrived three years later. The song “Steps” is from the album White Stones.

My Microphone has broken...so now for each episode, you get to listen to the piece without any commentary. All of the facts will be posted in the show notes. So, on to today's piece!

Today's piece is called British Eighth. It was composed by Zo Elliott.

Zo Elliott was an American, but he had close ties with Great Britain since his grandfather was from England. Elliott studied at Trinity College of Cambridge University in 1913 and 1916, and his song, “There’s a Long, Long Trail,” was published first in England and quickly adopted by British soldiers. Lloyd George, then prime minister of England, called it “the song which helped us win the war.” British Eighth March was published in 1944, dedicated to General Bernard Montgomery and the Eighth Army after a triumphant sweep across North Africa in 1942. Montgomery commanded all Allied ground forces during the invasion of France, and in 1951 he became deputy commander of the Atlantic Pact nations. Zo Elliott’s impressive march has retained its popularity on both sides of the

Atlantic. In a 1980 random survey of 69 members of the Texas Bandmasters Association, for example, British Eighth March was ranked third in a list of nearly 80 favorites. Enjoy!!!

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