Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Super Bowl

On His 94th Birthday, John Williams Continues to Inspire

Who cares about the Super Bowl, when it’s John Williams’ birthday? Williams is 94 years-old today.

John Williams is everywhere right now. His Piano Concerto, written for Emanuel Ax – and given its world premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood this past summer – is making the rounds, with performances by the New York Philharmonic later this month and the Philadelphia Orchestra next season. His score for the film “Disclosure Day” – his 30th collaboration with director Steven Spielberg –will arrive in theaters on June 12th. (Allegedly, he just recorded it.) And right now, selections from his Olympic fanfares are being played as segues and bumpers throughout broadcasts of the games from Milano Cortina.

Williams hasn’t written anything new for this year’s Olympics, nor for that matter, for tonight’s Super Bowl (unless there’s a new trailer for “Disclosure Day”). However, on at least one occasion, possibly more, his “NBC Sunday Night Football Theme” has opened the broadcast.

In 2023, Williams composed music for the telecast of ESPN’s College Football Playoff Championship. Set the athletic mood with “Of Grit and Glory.”

I just remembered: Williams also wrote the score for the 1977 thriller “Black Sunday,” in which Robert Shaw races to prevent Bruce Dern from blowing up the Super Bowl – with the Goodyear blimp!

The indelible “Olympic Fanfare and Theme,” composed for the 1984 summer games in Los Angeles and part of Olympic broadcasts ever since

Also frequently heard: the fanfare from “Summon the Heroes,” written for the 1996 Atlanta games

When we listen to John Williams, we can imagine a better, more inspiring world.

Thank you, and happy birthday, John Williams!

——-

BONUS: Ten-minute Williams interview with Variety, filmed when the composer was 92

February 8, 2026
Six Million Dollar Man & Batman on Tie-Dye Sci-Fi

It’s only appropriate that our tribute to “The Six Million Dollar Man” would run approximately six million minutes. Grab yourself a quart of Pennzoil and brace yourself for this bionic behemoth.

Since our aim is always to leave everyone wanting more, we’re taking off this Sunday. But then get ready for a double-dose next weekend, as on Friday, February 5, we’ll head to the Bat-poles for a four-fisted reminiscence of “Batman,” the 1966 movie, spun off of the primary-colored camp television series. Then, on Super Sunday, the blood sport of choice is “Rollerball, “as Roy and I go head-to-head with the Super Bowl. Join us for what’s bound to be the lowest-rated Super Bowl in history.

We’ll be elbows-deep in manwiches and buffalo wings, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. I’ll be waiting in the end zone, while Roy digresses about “Star Trek,” next Friday and Sunday evenings at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

January 30, 2021
Eagles Win Celebrated With Eagle-Inspired Music

Fly, Eagles, fly! Celebrate the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory* with music about – well, eagles, today on The Classical Network.

Anthony Philip Heinrich, dubbed by one contemporary critic “The Beethoven of America,” was the first full-time American composer to write on a large scale. Incredibly, he didn’t embark on the career that would ensure his lasting notoriety until the age of 36.

Heinrich was born in Bohemia in 1781. When his uncle’s fortune was wiped out during the Napoleonic Wars, young Heinrich turned to the violin. He immigrated to America and settled for a time in Philadelphia. There, he learned of a job in Pittsburgh. He embarked in high spirits, traveling the 300 miles mostly on foot, but when he arrived he found the job had already been filled. Disconsolate, he wandered southwest into the wilderness of Kentucky.

At the end of a 700 mile journey, Heinrich awoke from a raging fever to find himself in a log cabin. He set about reinventing himself as a composer, writing music for impractically large forces in an idiom that would have seemed advanced at the time, full of chromaticism and jangling harmonies. He also somehow managed to pull together enough musicians to perform Beethoven’s First Symphony – only its second performance in the United States.

Later, Heinrich would become a founding member of the New York Philharmonic Society, perform some of his own music before President Tyler, and make several extended trips to Europe. Still, he was not to escape poverty, and he died in neglect in New York City in 1861.

Hardly surprising for a personal friend of John James Audubon, a number of Heinrich’s works deal with ornithological themes. The most ambitious of these must be “The Ornithological Combat of Kings, or the Condor of the Andes and the Eagle of the Cordilleras” (1847). While it might not be the most polished or compelling work of art, it is the one I think best reflects the scrappy can-do spirit of long-suffering Philadelphia Eagles fans.

Hear it this afternoon, one of several pieces inspired by eagles – in honor of the Eagles. America’s got talons, between 4 and 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

*Just to clarify, the Eagles previously won the NFL championship in 1948, 1949, and 1960 – the first “Super Bowl” did not take place until 1967 – so please don’t tear down my goal post!

February 5, 2018

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