Prolific and legendary composer John Williams has announced his next project, and it’s probably not what you would expect. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones composer wrote an original theme for the upcoming College Football Playoff National Championship game that airs this coming Monday.
The 3.5-minute song is titled “Of Grit and Glory,” and it will be included in a visual package that together aim to convey “the feeling behind the night, fear and anticipation, triumph and failure,” according to ESPN’s Martin Khodabakhshian.
Variety heard the track and said it is a “joyful overture, opening with fanfares and shifting seamlessly from martial urgency to anthemic splendor, all richly orchestrated and instantly memorable.”
The song was performed by a 96-piece orchestra on December 21. An ESPN film crew shot the performance with seven cameras, covering the entire three-hour session. Segments from the recording will air during the broadcast this Monday.
Williams is best known for the music he wrote for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park–among many others–but he also wrote four songs for the Olympics and previously worked with NBC to create the iconic Sunday Night Football theme.
At 90 years old, Williams is staying busy. He’s also composing the score for the next Indiana Jones movie, the Dial of Destiny, which releases in June. Williams has won five Academy Awards so far in his career for composing the music for Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., and Schindler’s List.
The College Football Playoff National Championship airs this Monday, January 9, from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood California. TCU is taking on Georgia for the title.
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