Star Wars Composer John Williams Pens ESPN College Football Theme
Here’s something interesting for all you Star Wars fans. Famous composer John Williams was tasked with penning an original theme for ESPN’s College Football Playoff National Championship. The game will air at 7:30pm Eastern Monday night prior to the TCU-Georgia game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
According to a piece in Variety the new piece is called “Of Grit and Glory.” The theme is three and a half minutes long and will accompany visuals that will convey, “the feeling behind the night, fear and anticipation, triumph and failure,” said ESPN co-director and producer Martin Khodabakhshian.
Williams said of the piece, “Intercollegiate football has been at the heart and soul of our nation’s life for so long that the opportunity to musically salute this great tradition has been a particularly meaningful joy for me. I was thrilled and excited when ESPN suggested that I write a theme for the Jan. 9 championship game.”
The composition features a 96-piece orchestra. It took three and a half hours to record the piece and ESPN was on hand to film the process. According to Variety, footage from the recording session will be intertwined with other shots in the opening College Football segment. You can take a first listen to the new theme during Monday’s TCU-Georgia matchup.
Williams’ new theme is believed to be the largest-scale musical commission ever for ESPN. At the moment, the Sports Network (which is owned by Disney) hasn’t said if it will reuse the piece for future college football broadcasts!
For those unfamiliar, Williams has composed some of the most popular film soundtracks of all time. This includes the theme for Star Wars, Superman, Jaws, Indiana Jones, E.T., Home Alone, and Jurassic Park. As we previously reported here at MickeyBlog, Williams is working on the soundtrack for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Williams has previously said that this is his last soundtrack before his retirement from composing.
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Source: Variety