A Night of Wonder: Stéphane Denève, The Best of John Williams
Written By Olga Garcia-Mayoral
Stéphane Denève already radiates the kind of buoyant curiosity that makes an audience lean forward. The French conductor, known internationally for his affinity for living composers, is an eloquent champion of John Williams’ music, on the podium and in conversation — led the New World Symphony’s “The Best of John Williams” at Knight Concert Hall on October 18, 2025. In person, Denève is generous and effusive, the sort of maestro who quotes Spielberg with a twinkle and then, in the following breath, talks about brass endurance and woodwind transparency with surgical precision.
Maestro Denève, the Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, walks on stage with the ease of someone who genuinely loves the company he’s keeping–both the orchestra in front of him and the composer he’s celebrating. In conversation, “We will play tonight a piece called Harry’s Wondrous World,” he told me before the concert, “and I think there is always this feeling of wonder associated with him, with his music…just love.” That word–wonder–would become a signature thread through the evening at Knight Concert Hall. This program doubled as a tribute, a masterclass, and for me, a profoundly personal homecoming to the soundtracks of my childhood.
I met Denève an hour before the grand performance. I had a list of questions; We sat for a brisk exchange that flowed like the sound chamber of secrets. When I asked how he curated the night for Williams’ immense catalog, he smiled with a conductor’s familiar blend of delight and pragmatism. “It is tough to choose indeed, because I love so many of his pieces,” he said. “The idea I had was to perform a concerto of his… I wanted the audience, who often comes for the film music–to discover another part of what he composed. And then I tried to choose what would be good for the fellows to work on…to show them how rich this music is, how varied, and how much it rewards care and detail.”
If curation was the scaffolding, emotion was the architecture. Of all the selections, Denève admitted he feels the closest to E.T. “I was 10 years old when E.T. was released. I was the exact same age as Elliot…I believe it’s the first time I cried in a movie theater.” He recalled Spielberg’s famous line–“I can bring the audience to the brink of crying, but it is John Williams’ music that makes the tear fall”–and then nodded, as if to say: yes, and tonight we’ll prove it.
From my seat in the third row of the orchestra, the program unfurled like a reel of living memory. The violins spun the opening sheen of Harry’s Wondrous Word, and I was instantly eight again, reading in my living room while the soundtrack blasted through my CD player. The oboe’s phrasing, tender but unsentimental, led into a string swell that triggered that fizzy, head-to-toe sensation I only get with Williams: an ache that also lifts the soul. I felt tears pool–not just at the melody, but at its craftsmanship: how the inner notes braid, how percussion is held back a half-beat longer than you expect, how brass are invited to declaim but never bludgeon. Denève drew out those details with a kind of clarity that feels generous rather than clinical.
I asked him how he balances fidelity to the original film recordings with the creative license of a concert performance. His response was liberating as it was practical. “Since we have the recordings and the movie, should we do exactly the same? I don’t think so,” he said. “His music is so rich it can be played without the movie. In film, he followed the timing–but in concert, I feel very at ease to put my own interpretation and feelings into the piece. Every conductor, every orchestra can do it differently. That’s beautiful.” You heard that freedom in Raiders March, where Denève shaped the main theme with a swagger just loose enough to dance, in Yoda’s theme, where he let the lines breathe-slightly elongated cadences that made the wisdom in the melody feel earned rather than announced.
So much of Williams’ writing is attached to images–bikes across the mood, dinosaurs in nature, and spaceships flying in Space–that it’s fair to ask whether the music holds the same weight without them. Denève argues that his reasoning is, yes, rooted in craft. At Williams’ home, he once studied the cue sheets that map the film to the score nearly “second after second.” “He’s really following the movie precisely,” Denève said. “But at the same time, he creates a musical logic in parallel–so strong that if you remove the movie, the logic is convincing. You follow the story of the music without knowing anything about the film.” That parallel logic is exactly what filled the hall in the theme from Jurassic Park. Without dinosaurs on screen, the brass chorale glowed as an ode to awe itself: not spectacle but scale; not fear but reverence.
There’s a persistent critique that Williams’ language leans heavily on Romantic and late-19th-century idioms. Denève brushed aside the charge with a historian’s perspective and a practitioner’s ear. “Every great composer is like a sponge…No good music comes from nowhere,” he said. Influences are inevitable and honorable. “You always recognize John Williams’ music for what it is–John Williams. There’s nothing to ‘defend’. He never quotes; the genius is in the voice. The melodies are his.” He even credits Williams with something larger than any single score: “I think he saved the symphony orchestra in popular culture,” Denève said, noting how Star Wars re-associated orchestral sound with futuristic storytelling and how blockbusters still turn to orchestras when they need true power.
Backstage realities shape poetry, too. Denève described the demands these pieces place on an ensemble–” virtuosity…endurance…transparency, working on layers.” He singled out the brass for their stamina and control, and spoke about sculpting what he called “the John Williams sound,” a warm, richly blended sonority rooted in the kind of German repertoire.” One practical decision revealed the conductors-as-producer: in Close Encounters, an organ is optional. “I decided not to make it optional,” he said with a grin. “Otherwise, it’s lacking. So we organized an electronic organ to be brought here.” That touch mattered later — when the harmonics opened under the strings, the organ’s quiet foundation made the air in the hall feel charged.
Personally, the night pressed a finger on memories I didn’t realize were still humming. My father is a lifelong Star Wars and Indiana Jones devotee; growing up, our family listened to the vinyl soundtracks and had movie marathons. When Harry’s Wondrous World, the audience was once again a group of curious children, marveling at the world before them. Hearing the Raiders March in the room where it happens–a brass line that grins as it strides–was like opening a time capsule and finding it still warm. Yoda’s theme arrived, and I thought about patience and mentorship; when the clarinet offered its gentle answer to the strings, I thought about my own mentors in the arts who trusted me before I knew how to master myself.
Denève’s relationship with Williams goes beyond advocacy. “It’s the truth that we are friends,” he shared. They’ve worked through scores side by side at Williams’ home, traveled together to Japan, and shared stages for significant milestones. Denève was invited to conduct at the composer’s 90th birthday celebration in Washington, and later a gala with him at Carnegie Hall. He paints a portrait of an artist whose celebrity never curdles into self-regard. “He looks at you with curiosity…He never really wants to speak about himself,” Denève said. “He’s the most generous human being, the most humble. When you are with him, you feel at ease; you can be yourself.” That humility, Denève suggests, is inseparable from the music’s openness–the way it welcomes listeners into big feelings without condescension.
Miami calls itself the Magic City, so I asked Denève about dreaming–how to keep it alive at every stage of an artist’s life. His answer was as much a philosophy as a practice. “The key is curiosity and a sense of marveling,” he said. “There are so many things to admire.” He spoke of his own path with genuine gratitude: moving to Paris at 18, discovering operas and concerts, meeting extraordinary artists. “I feel my life is a permanent bonus…like a child in a toy shop.” That attitude, he added, is one reason Williams’ music keeps its charge; it keeps us “on the right side of the Force.”
In the Hall, that childlike joy radiated through the Flying theme of E.T. Denève, widened the phrase just enough before the takeoff–the bar where the melody vaults and the harmony blossoms–and I felt my throat rise with it. When the bikes finally lifted (if only in our collective imagination), the audience breathed as one.
If you spend enough time with John Williams’ music, you come to feel what Denève articulated so simply: that the work invites you to love without embarrassment–to feel big feelings in full color and excellent counterpoint. At the end of our interview, I asked him to describe Williams’ legacy in one word. He didn’t hesitate. “Wonder,” he said. Then, after a beat: “Love.”
Those words described my night as well. Sitting in the third row, I was a writer, a listener, a professional with a passion, a kid with goosebumps, a curator thinking about programming, and a daughter remembering beautiful family memories and stories that took flight. Denève and the New World Symphony fellows didn’t just play the best of John Williams; they reminded me why this music endures off-screen–why, in a concert hall, it can stand on its own and still carry every memory with it. On the way out, Denève whispered, “May the Force be with you.” For once, the cliché felt earned. In Miami’s Magic City, on a night devoted to a composer of galaxies and gardens, we were all, for a couple of hours, on the side of wonder.
