Michael Tilson Thomas<\/a>, who attended in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777898488_804_.jpeg\")
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John Williams smiles while applauding a performance by the North Hollywood High School band at the dedication ceremony of the John Williams Performing Arts Center on campus.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point you have to stop calling that a coincidence,\u201d said Kennedy, a longtime collaborator of Williams who gave brief remarks before handing him the microphone. \u201cSomething happened here, and something can happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams moved to North Hollywood with his family in 1947, having grown up in Queens. He transferred to North Hollywood High as a 15-year-old sophomore, and joined the band and orchestra as a jazz-loving trombonist. His classmates included Susan Sontag (\u201cI remember her teaching a class in civics, when the teacher would sit down and listen to her,\u201d he told me in 2023) and many future actors, including Barbara Ruick, who played Carrie Pipperidge in \u201cCarousel.\u201d But his best friends were all music-inclined guys whose dads, like his, were famous musicians.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777898490_67_.jpeg\")
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A poster board featured yearbook photos of John Williams, left, performing with the North Hollywood High School Band, class of 1950, in the lobby of the new John Williams Performing Arts Center on the North Hollywood High School campus. <\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Williams embraced the nickname \u201cCurly,\u201d given to him by a fellow student in response to his curly red hair, and quickly created his own jazz band with classmates. Ruick sang with them at school events and dances, and they became the house band at a new teens-only venue in Van Nuys called the Dri-Nite Club. Broadcast on local radio, they caught the attention of Time magazine, which ran a story on \u201cCurly\u2019s\u201d band in October 1949.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777898494_594_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A newspaper story about John Williams\u2019 high school band from the Los Angeles Unified School District\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n
(Los Angeles Unified School District)<\/p>\n
Williams has said he fondly remembers his civics and French classes at North Hollywood High, but his time and passion were almost exclusively devoted to music. He rigorously practiced the piano at home, studying with a local concert pianist and MGM arranger named Robert Van Eps; on Wednesday nights he played in jam sessions with his father (Johnny Sr., a drummer) and the Columbia Pictures orchestra. He bopped around clubs in L.A. listening to jazz greats like Oscar Peterson (whose style influenced Williams\u2019 recent piano concerto), and started making a name of his own as a wunderkind performer and arranger.<\/p>\n
Long before he scored \u201cStar Wars\u201d or \u201cHarry Potter,\u201d Williams did his earliest arranging and orchestrating for theater productions at North Hollywood High. The impact of his time at North Hollywood High cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777898495_949_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
John Williams featured with members of the class of 1950 in the North Hollywood High School Yearbook.<\/p>\n
(Los Angeles Unified School District)<\/p>\n
During his remarks about the performing arts center on Wednesday, Williams said he felt particularly overwhelmed because the school was \u201cformative in my thinking and my professional work \u2026 This is a great, magical place, North Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams eventually married Ruick, his high school sweetheart and mother of his three children. Ruick was instrumental in making many of Williams\u2019 earliest career connections. She died from a brain aneurysm in 1974, at the age of 41, just one year before Williams\u2019 career catapulted with \u201cJaws.\u201d The couple\u2019s youngest son, Joseph, lead singer of Toto, stood proudly behind Williams during the theater\u2019s dedication.<\/p>\n
The John Williams Performing Arts Center (JWPAC) is the crescendo of a $319.5 million modernization project at North Hollywood High, which also includes modern classrooms and athletic facilities. It\u2019s a reflection of the diverse public school\u2019s commitment to the arts; students here can play in the orchestra, marching band or modern band, and study drama or modern dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I think about what else I might say to all of you younger people, students here,\u201d Williams said at his homecoming Wednesday, \u201ctwo words about this beautiful building: simply use it. Make sure you all use the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim Greiving is the author of \u201cJohn Williams: A Composer\u2019s Life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCurly\u201d Williams returned to his old high school campus last week for the first time in 76 years,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":772579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[26949,316747,9102,1582,276,10911,316748,316749,316752,6803,73319,2961,224,5337,316751,316746,316750,11645,15689,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-772578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-band","9":"tag-barbara-ruick","10":"tag-building","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-class","14":"tag-curly","15":"tag-dedication","16":"tag-enormous-stage","17":"tag-first-time","18":"tag-john-williams","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-mgm-arranger","23":"tag-north-hollywood-high","24":"tag-other-accomplished-alumnus","25":"tag-school","26":"tag-student","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116516362084609937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777898486_410_.jpeg\")
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