How many decades has the career spanned of the musician who was commissioned to write music for NBC's national news programs
John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. With a career spanning over six decades, he has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, including "Jaws", the "Star Wars" series, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Superman", "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", the "Indiana Jones" series, the first two "Home Alone" films, the first two "Jurassic Park" films, "Schindler's List", and the first three "Harry Potter" films. Williams has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but three of his feature films. Other notable works by Williams include theme music for the Olympic Games, "NBC Sunday Night Football", "The Mission" theme used by NBC News, the television series "Lost in Space" and "Land of the Giants", and the incidental music for the first season of "Gilligan's Island". Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. From 1980 to 1993, he served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor, and is now the orchestra's laureate conductor.
Howard Klein (music critic) Howard Klein (born 1931 in Teaneck, New Jersey) is an American music critic, pianist, and former Director of Arts and Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation. He earned both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Music from the Juilliard School. He began his career as a music teacher and pianist for dancer José Limón. In 1962 he became a music critic and reporter for "The New York Times". He left "The Times" in 1967 to become the Assistant Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, although he continued to contribute articles to the newspaper periodically on a freelance basis into the early 1970s. Klein played an instrumental role in the Rockefeller donation that established the TV Lab at Thirteen/WNET in 1971. In 1973 he succeeded Norman Lloyd as Director of Arts of the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1983 he became Deputy Director for Arts and Humanities for the foundation, a position he remained in until he left the organization in 1986. He then worked as the Director of Artists and Repertory for New World Records. Composer Charles Wuorinen dedicated his piano composition "Album Leaf" (1984) to him. He is the father of tenor Adam Klein.