The First Biography of John Williams
In John Williams: A Composer's Life, the first biography of the renowned film composer, author Tim Greiving offers an engaging account of a man whose body of work is well-known but whose personal life has consistently remained very private.
Williams wrote the memorable scores and hummable themes for a staggering number of popular touchstones across multiple generations–among them Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, and the Harry Potter series–and earned more Oscar nominations than any individual artist in the history of the motion picture Academy.
With unprecedented access to the famously private artist, Greiving attempted to plumb the depths of both the music and the man. Come hear him share some of stories behind the scores and reveal new insights about this mysterious wizard of cinema, in a conversation moderated by Seattle's own author and film critic, Jeffrey Overstreet.
Tim Greiving
Tim Greiving is an arts journalist and historian in Los Angeles who specializes in film music. He is the author of John Williams: A Composer's Life, the first biography of the renowned film composer. He regularly writes for the Los Angeles Times and has contributed to NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Criterion, and many other outlets. He has written program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Albert Hall, and liner notes for more than a hundred soundtrack albums.
Jeffrey Overstreet
Jeffrey Overstreet is the author of the film-focused memoirs Through a Screen Darkly and the upcoming Lost and Found in the Cathedral of Cinema, as well as the fantasy series The Auralia Thread. In 2024, he was voted Undergraduate Professor of the Year by the students of Seattle Pacific University, where he teaches creative writing and film studies. His essays have appeared in Image, Christianity Today, and Bright Wall Dark Room. His reviews, spanning more than 25 years, are published at JeffreyOverstreet.com.
