John Williams News

The Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Craneway Pavilion, located inside the historic Ford Point Building on the waterfront in Richmond, and the City of Richmond will again join forces to host a family-friendly Target Independence Day Celebration led by the Oakland East Bay Symphony and Music Director Michael Morgan on Thursday, July 3. The evening will also include pre-performance entertainment, food and fireworks. Craneway Pavilion, located on 25 waterfront acres, delivers spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline, with floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the entire event space as well as a 20,000 square foot patio, perfect for viewing the City of Richmond's firework display. The event is free to the public and in the six years since its inception has become one of the Bay Area's most popular and talked-about Independence Day Celebrations, made possible thanks to the generous support of Target. Parking will be available beginning at 5 pm and access to the Craneway Pavilion and Wharf will begin at 6:30 pm. In addition to the title sponsor, Target, concert sponsors include the City of Richmond and Chevron, Mechanics Bank is a contributing sponsor and KDFC is the media sponsor. For more information, visit www.oebs.org or www.craneway.com.

Continuing with its new 'incite change' mission, Collaboraction presents SKETCHBOOK: 2049, a rapid-fire, raucous festival of 17 world premiere theatre pieces ranging from under a minute to 20 minutes in length, all set in a positive post-apocalypse and reflective of contemporary society's current challenges. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the productions!

Award-winning actress and singer Lea Michele is confirmed to perform a duet with Kristin Chenoweth when Chenoweth is inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame at this year's Opening Night at the Hollywood Bowl, Saturday, June 21, at 8 pm. The two first performed together on the television series "Glee" in 2009, when Chenoweth's recurring character "April Rhodes" and Michele's "Rachel Berry" sang "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret.

Hal Leonard will release vocal selections for a series of shows from this Broadway season in the coming months, including: Rocky (available now), Beautiful (June 1,2014), A Night with Janis Joplin (June 1, 2014), A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (June 6, 2014), Big Fish (July 1, 2014), and Aladdin (August 1, 2014).

John Millington Synge's 1907 play is about Christy, a young man who shows up in an Irish village and announces that he has killed his father with a blow to the head. For some reason, the men of the town are impressed by this feat and immediately claim friendship with the boy, while all the women in the town eye him as potential husband material, particularly the young barmaid Pegeen Mike.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Princeton University Department of Music announce the four composers of the inaugural NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute, a multi-faceted program that promotes new music and emerging composers. The Institute is a collaboration between the NJSO and the Princeton University Department of Music and is generously funded in part by the Edward T. Cone Foundation.

The New York Philharmonic will mark Glenn Dicterow's farewell - following 34 years as Concertmaster, the longest tenure of any concertmaster in Philharmonic history - with the release of New York Philharmonic Presents: The Glenn Dicterow Collection, three albums on the New York Philharmonic label featuring Mr. Dicterow's favorite solo performances from 1982 to 2012. The first album will be available on CD, which comes with a 90-page commemorative booklet that includes program notes with Mr. Dicterow's comments, essays about Mr. Dicterow by Alan Gilbert and Archivist/Historian Barbara Haws, photographs, and a complete list of Mr. Dicterow's solo performances. It will also be available as a download on iTunes and Amazon.com. The second and third albums will be available as downloads only. The CD and booklet are $16.99; the downloads are $9.99 each or $24.99 for all three downloadable albums. The collection, distributed by Naxos, is now available for pre-order; it will be available for purchase and download on nyphil.org/DicterowCollection beginning June 3.

A mesmeric thriller, Lucy Bailey's acclaimed production of DIAL M FOR MURDER returns to the stage following its hugely successful premiere in 2009. Frederick Knott's suspenseful murder mystery comes to the Theatre Royal Glasgow from Tuesday 24 June for five days only.

Which film Edwards will tackle has yet to be announced, though many have speculated the planned spinoffs might follow Boba Fett, Yoda, or a young Han Solo. Disney and Lucasfilm have just announced that Godzilla director Gareth Edwards has been tapped to helm one of the upcoming STAR WARS spinoff films. Gary Whitta will pen the untitled project's script. The studio has already confirmed three are in development, alongside J.J. Abrams' upcoming 'EPISODE VII.'

The BPO has planned a multifaceted summer that sees the orchestraperforming at the Erie County Fair, Canalside and Old Fort Niagara; traveling to Princeton University; working with the Doctors of the World Orchestra to raise funds for the new John R. Oishei Children's Hospital; and bringing rare instruments to Western New York.

The New York Philharmonic will salute departing Principal Trumpet Philip Smith - who will step down from his position at the end of the 2013-14 season following 36 seasons of service - in A Celebration of Phil Smith, a concert featuring the New York Philharmonic Brass and Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Mr. Smith and Bramwell Tovey, July 5, 2014, at 2:00 p.m. The program will also include works that showcase brass: an arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Procession of the Nobles; a Horn Quartet by Gershwin; Tomasi's Liturgical Fanfares; an arrangement of The Great Gate of Kiev from Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; and Pollack's That's a Plenty, which the New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet, of which Mr. Smith was a founding member, has frequently performed as an encore on the Orchestra's tours. Philharmonic musicians will introduce the works and speak about Mr. Smith.

Student musicians from the Atlanta area, including members of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra (ASYO) and Talent Development Program (TDP), will perform a Side-By-Side Concert with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at 8:00 p.m. in Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center. ASO Assistant Conductor Joseph Young will lead the musicians in a program featuring Brahms's Academic Festival Overture, Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave, the "Berceuse and Finale" From Stravinsky's TheFirebird Suite, and the "Main Title" from John Williams's Star Wars, among others.

One of the most iconic rock-and-roll bands to come out of London during the 1970s—Grammy Award-winning “America”—joins Pacific Symphony Pops to rock the house with hot hits, soulful ballads and rock classics. The perennial folk-country-rock favorite celebrates its 44th anniversary this year with nearly half a century of gold and platinum albums, chart-topping hits and a variety of genre-crossing tunes in its wake. The band's surreal, somewhat psychedelic lyrics, which were an anomaly in their genre, helped to define the new California soft-rock sound that grew out of the area's folk and pop. Founding members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell join the orchestra to perform such signature hits as “A Horse with No Name,” “Ventura Highway,” “You Can Do Magic,” “Lonely People,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “Tin Man” and more.

Haunting melodies and sweet, euphonious voices combine to create a deeply moving, life-affirming evening of music, as Pacific Symphony dives into spiritual depths in preparation for Carl Orff's masterful oratorio, “Carmina Burana.” Weaving together lyrics that date back to the 12th and 13th centuries, “Carmina Burana” is brazen with its gleeful double entendre and is made even more decadent with the magnificent voices of soprano Cyndia Sieden, tenor Marc Molomot and baritone Michael Kelly joining the orchestra. Led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, the Symphony paves the way for Orff's masterful work by performing John Williams' “Exsultate Justi,” Lukas Foss' “Elegy for Anne Frank,” Charles Ives' “The Unanswered Question” and Kathy C. Bowen's “I Believe in God.” Pacific Chorale, led by Artistic Director John Alexander, lends its voices to enhance the majestic sounds, while Southern California Children's Chorus represents the voices of children during World War II.

Haunting melodies and sweet, euphonious voices combine to create a deeply moving, life-affirming evening of music, as Pacific Symphony dives into spiritual depths in preparation for Carl Orff's masterful oratorio, "Carmina Burana." Weaving together lyrics that date back to the 12th and 13th centuries, "Carmina Burana" is brazen with its gleeful double entendre and is made even more decadent with the magnificent voices of soprano Cyndia Sieden, tenor Marc Molomot and baritone Michael Kelly joining the orchestra. Led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, the Symphony paves the way for Orff's masterful work by performing John Williams' "Exsultate Justi," Lukas Foss' "Elegy for Anne Frank," Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" and Kathy C. Bowen's "I Believe in God." Pacific Chorale, led by Artistic Director John Alexander, lends its voices to enhance the majestic sounds, while Southern California Children's Chorus represents the voices of children during World War II.

Screenwriter Robert Towne and actress Cicely Tyson. Both Towne and Tyson will be recognized for their 'contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image.'

The Cleveland POPS Orchestra traditional patriotic concert features the 122nd Army Band of the Ohio National Guard. Cleveland POPS Chorus lends its impressive collective voice to Cleveland's most cherished tribute to our heroes, along with the Mutual Gifts Gospel Choir. Military-inspired, patriotic music and sing-alongs. Hear the marvelous 2013 co-winner of the Jean L. Petitt Memorial Music Scholarship, 17-year old violinist Maria Beltavski.Sponsored by MEDICAL MUTUAL

Yesterday, the film's director, JJ Abrams' Bad Robot tweeted a photo from the very first day of filming on a Star Wars movie in more than 10 years

When the weather is hot, the music stays cool thanks to the classic sounds of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. A sizzling lineup of guest artists, musical tributes and movie scores, as well as unique performances of classical, pops and contemporary pieces, await at Heinz Hall during the Pittsburgh Symphony's summer season.

Ford's character, space adventurer Han Solo's role will be significantly larger than that of Luke and Leia.