Hosted by Tim Burden, Maurizio Caschetto, Mike Matessino
Featuring Special Guests Jon Burlingame, Jeff Bond, Neil Bulk, Deniz Cordell, Annie Pasqua, Miguel Andrade, Jason LeBlanc, John Takis
Sing a song for the glorious season!
The Legacy of John Williams presents a special Christmas episode of its podcast series to celebrate the music of the Maestro during this magical, lyrical time of the year together with friends and a few esteemed guests.
The traditional end-of-the-year talk with soundtrack producer Mike Matessino covering highlights and special releases takes a break this time (don’t worry, more soundtrack releases from John Williams’s catalogue are on the way), but we still want to offer fans and followers of The Legacy of John Williams a special Holiday treat with a festive episode assembling a group of special guests and friends. Take this as Christmas party with people gathering to exchange wishes and reminiscing what made us fall in love with the Maestro’s music when we were kids. For this occasion, Matessino joins Tim Burden and Maurizio Caschetto as co-host of the talk.
Kicking off the festivities is a very esteemed guest appearing for the very first time on the website. Journalist, author and lecturer Jon Burlingame is USA’s leading writer on the subject of music for films and television. He writes regularly for Variety and, over the past 30 years, has also written on the topic for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post; and such magazines as Premiere, Emmy and The Hollywood Reporter. He is the author of Music for Prime Time (Oxford University Press, 2023), the award-winning, best-selling The Music of James Bond (Oxford University Press, 2012), Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks (Billboard Books, 2000), TV’s Biggest Hits (Schirmer Books, 1996), and For the Record (Recording Musicians Association, 1997). He is also the co-author, with UK writers Geoff Leonard and Pete Walker, of Music by John Barry (Windmill Books, 2021), a comprehensive look at more than 40 scores by the distinguished British composer. He is also the host of For Scores, a monthly podcast devoted to interviews with film and TV composers. Burlingame has twice won ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award for outstanding music journalism. In 2014, he received another industry honor, BMI’s Special Citation of Appreciation (“for being a sincere and respected champion to so many in the film and television music community”).
Burlingame has interviewed John Williams many times over the years, becoming friendly with the composer and chronicling with accurate reporting the many milestones of his career. Jon sits down with The Legacy of John Williams to offer his own special perspective about Williams and the unique trajectory of the Maestro’s long career as a composer for film and television, which he started following already in the 1960s, immediately becoming a fan of his music.
The talk continues with another renowned authority on film music, author and writer Jeff Bond. He is the author of The Music of Star Trek (Lone Eagle, 1999), Danse Macabre: 25 Years of Danny Elfman and Tim Burton (Warner Bros. Records, 2010), The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen (Titan Books), and the upcoming two-volume The Jerry Goldsmith Companion. He has written liner notes for hundreds of archival soundtrack releases, including several John Williams titles (A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Amistad, Rosewood). He covered film music for The Hollywood Reporter for ten years and has written dozens of articles for Film Score Monthly.
Bond became acquainted with John Williams’s music as a kid in the late 1960s watching the Irwin Allen-produced television shows Lost In Space and The Time Tunnel. He turned into a true fan a few years later thanks to the disaster films The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, which boasted powerful scores by the composer. In 2021, Jeff was part of the online discussion panel Score Masters: Celebrating John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, a special 2-hour video produced by The Legacy of John Williams together with The Goldsmith Odyssey and King Street Cinema.
Joining the talk afterwards are several first-time guests of the podcast. Musicians Deniz Cordell and Annie Pasqua are busy musicians in the musical theater scene in New York. Deniz is an an accomplished pianist, composer, songwriter and musical director; he’s also a professional actor and scriptwriter, with a long list of credits to his name. Annie is a pianist, musical director, composer, and educator whose performance credits include Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Nassau Coliseum, and Symphony Space. They both consulted on La-La Land Records’ releases Fiddler On The Roof and Hook – The Ultimate Edition produced by Mike Matessino and share a love for the music of John Williams and film scores in general since the early age.
Los Angeles-based producer Neil Bulk has worked on dozens of archival soundtrack releases, including many by La-La Land Records. He assembled several John Williams releases for Mike Matessino and also produced such best-selling titles as the expanded and remastered releases of classic James Bond scores Live And Let Die, Octopussy, Moonraker and The Man With The Golden Gun. He is a longtime fan of John Williams and became a connoisseur of his music since he was a kid.
Contributing Writer Miguel Andrade also joins the podcast for the first time, bringing his deep knowledge of John Williams’ music gathered throughout a lifetime of devoted listening and collecting; returning guests Jason LeBlanc and John Takis round off the table of this special Christmas episode.
Grab your favourite Holiday drink, sit down in the comfort of your chair, put the headphones on and feel that gingerbread feeling while listening to this cheerful conversation among friends and connoisseurs sharing their mutual love for John Williams’s music and going somewhere in their memory to tell about how it all began. Perk your ears also for a few musical gifts and…
Happy Holidays!
Listen to our curated Christmas-themed John Williams playlist:
The Legacy of John Williams 