Williams scores with Olympic theme

LONDON, England (CNN) -- John Williams, the legendary composer responsible for dozens of film scores, including "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter," is adding the 2002 Winter Olympics to his resume.

Williams was at the historic Abbey Road Studios in London recently to cut his latest masterpiece, "Call of the Champions" -- the opening theme to the Salt Lake City Games.

At nearly 70, his career has been rich and varied: more than 80 film scores, numerous TV themes, two symphonies, five Oscars, 39 Oscar nominations, 17 Grammys, three Golden Globes and two Emmys.

Olympic-sized music is nothing new to Williams -- he composed the official theme to the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, "Summon the Heroes," as well as the themes to the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics. The Salt Lake theme is performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

His father, also a professional musician, would be proud.

"Before I even went into the primary grade of school, I began to learn to read music, I think, maybe even before I began to read words, or about the same time," Williams told CNN while working in London.

"So it's been a commitment from the very earliest time in my life to something that I never really had an alternative view to compare it to."

Williams went straight from music school to becoming the staff pianist for a motion picture company. He worked his way from that job to orchestration -- and then, as he puts it, "a little bit of composing" for films.

He worked on Alfred Hitchcock's last film, and most if not all of Steven Spielberg's movies, in addition to George Lucas' "Star Wars" series.

"For a composer, film work is a wonderful opportunity to find the chance and opportunity to write music and contribute to a thing like this," he says, "to reach not thousands of people like we do with a concert, but millions, maybe even in the case of 'Star Wars,' billions of people ultimately will see this and hear the music.

"There's something about cinema itself that is a medium that needs to have music. There really is nothing in existence to call a silent film. Even in the old silent film days, there was always someone playing the piano or the organ or singing or playing the violin.

"People sometimes say, 'Where do you get the inspirations, where does it come from?' And basically I can say it can come from the film itself -- you have wonderful characters and scenes and atmospheres in these films, and the films really almost suggest the music that wants to live within it.

"And so I find it an inspiring medium and a rewarding one in so many ways, in musical ways and dramatic ways and all of the other considerations that make it a really, a very happy working life for me."

It's also been a more powerful experience for moviegoers.

"All of life is such that most people's lives are not remembered, and so many of us do wonderful things, and I just think to be remembered at all for anything would be a marvellous thing."