John Williams stepped onto the Hollywood Bowl stage this weekend and conducted “The Imperial March” himself, a surprise encore that nobody in the audience had been told to expect. The 94-year-old composer, seated in a wheelchair, took the baton from David Newman at the end of Maestro of the Movies: A Tribute to John Williams on Friday, September 4, and did it again on Saturday, September 5, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic through the Darth Vader theme from The Empire Strikes Back.
The three-night tribute is a Bowl tradition, and Williams conducted parts of it himself for years before stepping back. His last time on the Bowl podium was in 2023, and according to the John Williams Fan Network, this weekend marked his first public conducting appearance of any kind since February 22, 2024, when he shared a Philadelphia Orchestra program at Carnegie Hall in New York. On the closing night, Sunday, September 6, he did not appear in person but sent a message to the audience that played on the Bowl’s screens.
The Hollywood Bowl posted video of the encore on its own Instagram account, and additional clips of Williams saluting the orchestra and the crowd after the performance spread quickly across social media over the weekend.
A Stage That Already Carries His Name
The appearance came less than a year after the Los Angeles Philharmonic dedicated the Hollywood Bowl stage to Williams in a private ceremony on November 9, 2025, the first time in the venue’s history that its stage had been named for an artist. Newman conducted the rest of the program both nights, with Bryce Dallas Howard hosting, a set that ran from the flying theme from E.T. and the barrel chase from Jaws through Hedwig’s Theme, the Superman March, the themes from Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, and “The Throne Room and Finale” from Star Wars, most of it played to film clips.
Williams has scored all nine films in the Skywalker saga, beginning with the Academy Award-winning score for the original Star Wars in 1977. He holds more Academy Award nominations than anyone in history except Walt Disney.
The Disney Legend Who Missed His Own Ceremony
Williams was named a Disney Legend in 2024, an honor presented at that summer’s D23 ceremony at the Honda Center in Anaheim, though he was unable to attend in person. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Harrison Ford presented the award on stage, with Kennedy calling him the greatest film composer of all time and Ford saying he had written the soundtrack of our lives, while the Pacific Symphony played a medley of his scores. His most recent Lucasfilm work was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in 2023.
Star Wars fans have another Williams-heavy season ahead. The music of the original trilogy is scheduled for a Royal Albert Hall program in London next year, and Star Wars Celebration returns in 2027. Disney’s own Star Wars: The Experience, which previewed at D23 this summer, leans on the same catalog.
Whether Williams conducts in public again is an open question. He had not done so in more than two and a half years before Friday, and the Bowl program listed him only as a special guest, with no indication he would take the podium. For the fans who happened to be in the seats on September 4 and 5, the two-minute encore was the closest thing to a farewell performance the composer has offered, and it was Darth Vader’s theme that he chose to conduct.
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