Star Wars: Return of the Jedi with Live Orchestra

Anthony Parnther is music director of the San Bernardino Symphony and conductor of the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, which he led in a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, showcasing the world premiere of I Can by Jon Batiste.

Parnther has conducted many of the world’s preeminent artists, from Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Jessye Norman, and Frederica von Stade to Imagine Dragons, John Legend, Avenged Sevenfold, Wu-Tang Clan, Metro Boomin, and Rihanna. Recent highlights include guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Nashville Symphony, and Chineke! Orchestra, with whom Parnther made his BBC Proms debut. Additional engagements include collaborations with the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in March 2023.

Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Parnther has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. As well as leading LA Opera’s world premiere of Tamar-kali’s oratorio We Hold These Truths and Long Beach Opera’s revival of Anthony Davis’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Central Park Five, Parnther has premiered and recorded works by Batiste, Kris Bowers, Chanda Dancy, Davis, Adolphus Hailstork, Marian Harrison, Philip Herbert, Daniel Kidane, Gary Powell Nash, James Newton, Perry, Price, Taylor, George Walker, Errollyn Wallen, James Wilson, and John Wineglass.

As one of today’s foremost film conductors, Parnther’s recent projects include Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Encanto, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Nope, Creed III, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, Tenet, American Dad!, Oppenheimer, Turning Red, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett, and League of Legends.

In a career spanning more than six decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and the concert stage. He remains one of our nation’s most distinguished and contributive musical voices. He has composed the music for more than 100 films, including all nine Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Schindler’s List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, and the Indiana Jones films. Williams served as music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra for 14 seasons and remains their laureate conductor. He has composed numerous works for the concert stage including two symphonies and more than a dozen concertos commissioned by some of America’s most prominent orchestras. He has received five Academy Awards and 54 Oscar nominations, seven British Academy Awards, 26 Grammys, four Golden Globes, and five Emmys. His other honors include the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, an honorary KBE from Queen Elizabeth II, the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, and the Gold Medal from the UK’s prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society.