John Williams has scored over 100 films and has received more than 50 Academy Award nominations. Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra feature an eclectic mix of Williams’s film music scores on their latest album “Lights, Camera...Music! Six Decades of John Williams.”
Lockhart and the Boston Pops forgo many of Williams’s most famous film scores in favor of a broader survey of his six decades of music. Examples of these lesser-known film scores include “Heidi,” “Midway,” and “The Terminal.”
Some of the music on this album has not been heard often because the scores were destroyed by the film studios once the movies were completed. The music for “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and “Sleepers” are two examples on this album. In both cases, the music was reconstructed using fragmented score sketches that Williams had kept in his personal library.
Not all of the music on the album is relatively obscure, though. “Lights, Camera...Music!” includes a suite from the 2015 film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” This is the first commercial recording of music from the film after its initial release on the original motion picture soundtrack.
John Williams, who turned 85 earlier this year, was the musical director of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993. Keith Lockhart assumed leadership of the Orchestra when Williams stepped down and has served in that post ever since.
