The music of the Star Wars franchise is composed and produced in conjunction with the development of the feature films, television series, and other merchandise within the epic space opera franchise created by George Lucas. Released between 1977 and 2015, the music for the primary feature films was written by composer John Williams and, in the case of the first two trilogies, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. In July 2013, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe that Williams would be returning once more to score the seventh episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Williams' scores for the seven saga films count among the most widely known and popular contributions to modern film music.
Additionally, music for an animated spinoff was written by Kevin Kinerries, and further music has been composed for Star Wars video games and works in other media (Television Series).The scores utilize an eclectic variety of musical styles, many culled from the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss and his contemporaries that itself was incorporated into the Golden Age Hollywood scores of Erich Korngold and Max Steiner. While several obvious nods to Gustav Holst, William Walton, Sergueï Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky exist in the score to Star Wars, Williams relied less and less on classical references in the latter five scores, incorporating more strains of modernist orchestral writing with each progressive score. The reasons for Williams' tapping of a familiar Romantic idiom are known to involve Lucas' desire to ground the otherwise strange and fantastic setting in well-known, audience-accessible music. Indeed, Lucas maintains that much of the original trilogy's success relies not on advanced visual effects, but on the simple, direct emotional appeal of its plot, characters and, importantly, music.