John Williams, Now 90, Reveals He May Be Done Composing Film Scores

Composer John Williams is the mastermind behind scores in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Harry Potter, and many other films and film franchises.

Williams has been composing for over five decades and has composed scores for over one hundred films. He has worked with director Steven Spielberg for over 45 years and has collaborated on more than 30 movies together.

Earlier this year, the "Duel of the Fates" composure hit a milestone birthday when he turned 90 years old. Although he and Harrison Ford, 79, are getting up there in age, neither of them has any plans to retire... but they may be looking to scale back their workload.

As AP News reported, John Williams hinted that he might step back from composing film scores when he finishes up his work on the still-untitled “Indiana Jones 5.”

“At the moment I’m working on ‘Indiana Jones 5,’ which Harrison Ford — who’s quite a bit younger than I am — I think has announced will be his last film,” Williams said. “So, I thought: If Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.”

Harrison Ford has not said that he plans to step back from acting in films, but he has been tapped for a new Apple TV+ series and a “Yellowstone” prequel series, so it does seem that he’s looking to scale back his film roles.

Although he is already 90 and has accomplished so much in his career, Williams said he doesn’t “want to be seen as categorically eliminating any activity,” adding, “I can’t play tennis, but I like to be able to believe that maybe one day I will.”

However, there are other things that Williams wanted to accomplish with his time. For example, he said that a “Star Wars” film takes about six months to compose. Williams said that a film like that “at this point in life is a long commitment to me.”

Lately, Williams has been composing concert music, including a piano concerto he’s writing for Emanuel Ax.

Although he turned 90 in February, the Kennedy Center and Tanglewood will host special birthday concerts this summer. Turning 90 has given Williams the chance to reflect on his lifetime of accomplishments and the ways that he has inspired a new generation of composers and musicians.

“It’s given me the ability to breathe, the ability to live and understand that there’s more to corporal life,” Williams explained. “Without being religious, which I’m not especially, there is a spiritual life, an artistic life, a realm that’s above the mundanities of everyday realities.”

“Music can raise one’s thinking to the level of poetry. We can reflect on how necessary music has been for humanity,” he continued. “I always like to speculate that music is older than language, that we were probably beating drums and blowing on reeds before we could speak. So it’s an essential part of our humanity.

In some ways, Williams said that music has “given me my life.”

A longtime friend, known simply as Ma, called Williams “one of the great American voices,” adding, “He’s lived through the better part of a century, and his music encompasses all of the events and changes of those times.”

Although John Williams may be stepping back from scoring films, he is showing no signs of slowing down in his musical career. The legendary composer, whose work has influenced millions, has numerous concerns planned for the rest of the year, including concerts in Los Angeles, and overseas, in cities like Singapore and Lisbon.

Although he, personally, may be stepping back from composing scores for movies and TV shows, Williams said that he still wants to see what contributions the next generation will make to music.

“I’d love to be around in 100 years to see what people are doing with film and sound and spatial, aural, and visual effects. It has a tremendous future, I think,” Williams said. “I can sense great possibility and great future in the atmospherics of the whole experience. I’d love to come back and see and hear it all.”