NEWS: Kennedy Honors

Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell told the tale of how Davis found his direction in life one day in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. He was a Howard University student at the time, there to hear the legendary Marian Anderson, who would later be among the first-ever Kennedy Center honorees. In tribute to that moment, and to Davis's ongoing relationship with Howard, the university choir sang backup as McDonald -- who revived Dee's role in "A Raisin in the Sun" and won a Tony for it -- sang the spiritual Anderson had performed that long-ago day, "Let Us Break Bread Together." […]
From opera the show took a dizzy turn into show business, into the music of movie memories -- the music of Williams's films. To the strains of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Spielberg introduced his frequent collaborator, calling his scores "guaranteed to make you use the whole Kleenex box."

"In the end," Spielberg said, "it's not Hollywood he writes for, he writes for all of you."

Perlman played "Schindler's List" to a hush of thoughtfulness and memory; then the Marine Corps Band followed with a medley of Williams's greatest hits -- "Star Wars," "Jaws," "Superman," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," each one fondly familiar.

Wrong_Irreverend said:
Better John Williams than Warren Beatty or Elton John, in my book at least.