That Roughshod Letter I Sent To John Williams Yesterday

Feeling I've spent too much time on obsessing over getting it perfect instead of getting it out into the world, I hastily finished my letter to John Williams and sent it out this past week. It was a little rougher than I had like because I also finished a longer (2 pages!) letter to author Susan Cooper who routinely accepts and responds to her mail. I don't expect contact with Williams and in fact my cover letter (to his agent) says as such.

While I'm disappointed I didn't smooth out the wording, it's enough that I put a couple of months into a page to finally force myself to see I'd never get it perfect. So now it's just a matter of forgetting about it and hoping it gets to his hands somehow by the grace of god or a bemused mail room lackey at Gorfaine / Schwartz.

===

Dear Mr Williams,

I am writing to you today as a humble admirer. Though I could not thank you enough for how your music has detailed my life if given a whole novel, I hope this one brief page gives some glimmer of understanding.

Music may very well be the most expressive of religions. In prayer, the Pilgrim pleads to be heard, and yet in music it is the Pilgrim that listens. The audience becomes the Divine, as the composer prays, hopes to be understood through his craft. Nothing is so ennobling or as close to Man's best joys as music. It goes beyond description and is thus pure experience. I have found nothing else in life short of love as magical or as humbling. 

Your music is chief amongst others; it encompasses all things with a talent unequalled. From your concert works to television and film, I can think of no one else who could craft such pain like "Abandoned In The Woods" while also arriving at the endless optimism in the end credits to Spacecamp (a personal favorite) or your Olympic fanfares. So often, life's constant struggles make our world seem a prison from which we are only freed with the right movement or melody. I do not know how, but music is more powerful than any four walls can contain.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There may never be enough words for it, even if I used all the world's languages twice over. I have not only found new worlds because of your music but have come to understand myself better as well. Again, thank you and the best to you and yours.

Most sincerely,

Justin Bielawa